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Canada's national weekly current affairs magazineSat, 10 Dec 2016 00:57:47 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.2An ugly homicide number we need to discusshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/an-ugly-number-we-need-to-discuss/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/an-ugly-number-we-need-to-discuss/#commentsFri, 25 Nov 2016 12:27:23 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=955823Aboriginal people account for a disproportionate share of homicide victims and accused murderers, a reality Canada must confront in order to halt the violence

This is what it means to be born Indigenous, in Canada, in the 21st century: You are twice as likely to die in infancy. You will be nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted as a child and three times more likely to drop out from school. You will be twice as likely to lose your job. If you have a job, you will earn 60 per cent less.

For Métis, Inuit, and First Nations Canadians, the deck is stacked against you from birth, and the stakes are as high as they can get. For many Indigenous people, who face an incarceration rate 10 times the national average, a losing hand means prison. For more than a thousand missing or murdered Aboriginal women, the rigged game ended in death. These numbers aren’t secret. I’ve written about them a dozentimesbefore, and we’ve been hearing them repeated by politicians, elders, academics and activists for decades now.

But here is a new number, from data released Wednesday by StatsCan: While Indigenous Canadians are six times more likely to be the victim of murder, they are eight times more likely to be a murderer.

Last year RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson told First Nations leaders that Indigenous perpetrators were responsible for 70 per cent of the solved homicides of Aboriginal women. They responded with furious indignation, and Paulson was attacked for vilifying the Indigenous community. NDP MP Niki Ashton, among many others, dismissed the RCMP numbers and demanded to see the data.

Well, StatsCan began to collect that data and now we have the latest figures. They’re ugly. The Indigenous community makes up less than five per cent of the population in Canada, but accounts for 32 per cent of all suspects accused of murder. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, it’s an astounding 74 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively. (The relative percentages for murders committed by Aboriginal women are even higher, but come from much smaller absolute numbers.)

And this presents two questions: Why are Indigenous Canadians so much more likely to commit murder? And why should we be talking about it?

The first question is much easier to answer. This is an issue of “place”, not “race.” Consider this map of Canada and the United States, based on research compiled here.

It is not a coincidence that the Canadian north is far more violent than any other province or state in either Canada or the U.S. When you drill down into the regional numbers for provinces like Saskatchewan, or look at the different neighbourhoods in Winnipeg, you see a similar picture on a smaller scale. Disconnected, unhealthy, and poor communities have far higher rates of violence. And these are adjectives that all too often describe the northern villages, remote reserves, and inner city neighbourhoods where Canada’s Indigenous population lives.

In these communities historic abuses, a lack of infrastructure, and social dislocation have exacerbated several factors that criminologists have long associated with higher rate of violence: large numbers of youth, single-parent households, high unemployment, and alcoholism.

The population in Canada’s Aboriginal communities is much younger than almost any other demographic, with a mean age of 27 years versus 40 for the rest of the country. More young men means more angry young men. And the places these kids are growing up in are more likely to be poor, and have higher numbers of single-parent homes.

These households are also the scene of far more domestic abuse compared to the Canadian average. Even when you control for social variables (such as rates of alcoholism or unemployment), “Aboriginal women consistently report a rate of partner violence much higher than their non-Aboriginal counterparts,” according to the Canadian Department of Justice.

This has created a vicious cycle in these Indigenous communities. Children raised in violent homes are up to 17 times more likely to have serious emotional and behavioural problems. Is it any wonder that an Aboriginal child, raised in a poor, single parent home, witnessing domestic violence, exposed to alcoholism, and warehoused in a sub-par school system, ends up becoming extremely violent themselves?

Which brings us to the second question, why is it important to confront the fact that Indigenous men are much more likely to be violent than other demographics? Because Commissioner Paulson was right. The overwhelming majority (71 per cent) of Indigenous homicide victims knew their attackers. They were killed by members of their own community, family members or friends.

And, shouting that the RCMP must “Do more!” will do nothing. You don’t end domestic violence with more police patrols. This is a much more complex problem, that needs the interventions by communities, elders, and provincial and federal agencies.

Why do Indigenous Canadians have the highest rates of victimization in the country? Because, as this latest data emphasizes, they live in the most violent communities in the country. The fact that I have to point this out, and that doing so will be met with anger, shows the embarrassingly primitive state of our national discussion on this issue. If we are ever going to address this crisis, we need to focus on where it starts: in the very communities First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Canadians live.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/an-ugly-number-we-need-to-discuss/feed/7First Nation accepts $50M settlement for land in Nanaimo, B.C.http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/first-nation-accepts-50m-settlement-for-land-in-nanaimo-b-c/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/first-nation-accepts-50m-settlement-for-land-in-nanaimo-b-c/#respondMon, 14 Nov 2016 01:51:53 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=950351The Snueymuxw First Nation said a 32-hectare piece of land was unlawfully taken from them in the 1880s

]]>NANAIMO, B.C. – Members of a First Nation on Vancouver Island have ratified a nearly $50-million settlement with the federal government, compensating the community for a piece of land in what is now downtown Nanaimo, B.C.

Ninety-eight per cent of the 848 community members who cast a ballot in Saturday’s vote opted to accept the $49,148,121 deal, said Douglas White, acting chief of the Snueymuxw First Nation.

“I think the result really confirms that we took the right approach and that we ended up in the right spot from the perspective of our membership,” he said in an interview.

The settlement is compensation for a 32-hectare piece of land that White said was unlawfully taken from the First Nation in the 1880s.

“There was oral history in the nation about this reserve and this loss of this reserve,” he said.

A member of the community first raised the issue in the late 1980s, White said, and following several years of historical research and legal analysis, the federal government agreed in 2003 to begin negotiations for a settlement.

“It’s obviously been a lot of work over a generation or two. And it’s something that’s been on the minds of the members for a long period of time, so to finally get to this point where there’s some kind of resolution is remarkable.”

The agreement will also give the First Nation the right to request a replacement parcel of land, which White said could potentially include part of a former military camp in Nanaimo.

Money from the settlement will go into a trust that will create economic opportunities for the Snueymuxw First Nation both immediately and into the future, White said.

“We’ve been really concerned that this work has taken so long and many of the people that started it are no longer with us,” he explained. “So we’re trying to strike a balance between immediate benefits, but also setting up the trust in a way that provides for the nation over generations.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/first-nation-accepts-50m-settlement-for-land-in-nanaimo-b-c/feed/0Corey O’Soup: ‘We have to be on the ground’http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/corey-osoup-we-have-to-be-on-the-ground/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/corey-osoup-we-have-to-be-on-the-ground/#respondWed, 02 Nov 2016 02:34:57 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=945289New Saskatchewan children's advocate says suicides will be his first priority

SASKATOON — Saskatchewan’s new advocate for children and youth says he is heading north as soon as possible.

Tuesday marked Corey O’Soup’s first day in the role, after taking over from the previous advocate Bob Pringle.

He says his first priority will be getting together with leaders in northern communities to work on addressing a wave of suicides that’s seen six girls between 10 and 14 years old take their own lives in a month.

O’Soup says he learned a lot before becoming advocate while helping to co-ordinate the province’s response to January’s school shooting in La Loche.

He says one of the biggest lessons was that solutions for the North won’t come from Regina or Saskatoon.

He says he and his staff hope to be up north by the end of the week.

“We have to be there. We have to be on the ground,” he says. “We have to be face-to-face and we have to be sitting there, together, working out solutions.”

While response to the immediate crisis is a high priority, O’Soup says he hopes to see more efforts directed at prevention.

He says that could include things like better mental health supports and education for youth, alongside programming for parents.

O’Soup notes the problem of youth suicides in Saskatchewan’s North isn’t new and says he hopes the latest crisis has brought enough attention to the issue to drive change.

“This isn’t the first time that children have done this or that this has happened to them. But this is the biggest spotlight they’ve had. So we need to use this time to make sure the supports are in place and to ensure governments are reacting the way they should be.”

OTTAWA — The former chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is urging all MPs to support an NDP motion on First Nations child welfare — a move that applies political pressure on the Liberals ahead of a Tuesday vote in the House of Commons.

In strongly worded written comments obtained by The Canadian Press, Murray Sinclair said he cannot overstate the importance of the federal government immediately complying with legal orders from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

“Canada’s discriminatory policies have led to greater failed and failing interventions into the lives of indigenous families than the residential schools and serious changes must be undertaken,” Sinclair said.

The failures of provincial child welfare systems combined with the failure of the federal government to recognize its fiduciary responsibilities were at the forefront of the commission’s calls to action that were released following the study of Canada’s residential school legacy, Sinclair added.

“Immediate action is required,” he said. “I encourage members of the House to support the motion proposed by member of Parliament Charlie Angus.”

The senator’s comments come ahead of a Tuesday vote on the motion that calls for an immediate $155-million investment and a funding plan for future years.

It also urges the government to adopt Jordan’s Principle, which says no aboriginal child should suffer denial, delay or disruption of health services available to other children because of jurisdictional feuds.

It is named after Jordan River Anderson, five-year-old boy with complex needs who died in hospital in 2005 after a two-year battle between the federal and Manitoba governments over his home care costs.

Sinclair’s remarks should force the government to take a step back and say ‘This is bigger than a tit for tat fight with the NDP,’“ Angus said in an interview.

“This is about our historic obligations to repair the damage that has been done to generations of First Nations families and children.”

The tribunal decision, issued in January, found the federal government discriminates against First Nations children in the way it delivers child welfare services on reserves.

It has since issued two legal orders urging action from the Liberals.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal only issues these orders due to a lack of compliance, said Cindy Blackstock _ a First Nations child advocate who spent nine years fighting the government along with the Assembly of First Nations prior to the landmark ruling.

“If the government was in full compliance with the orders, there would been no need at all for the tribunal to point to increasing measures that they have to comply with and demanding that the federal government report back that they have indeed met those measures.”

Last week prior to debate in the Commons on the motion, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett announced that a new special representative will lead national discussions on the reform of First Nations child welfare services.

Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux _ a Lakehead University professor and a Liberal candidate in the 2011 election _ is set to advise the government as it works with provinces, territories and child welfare agencies on an overhaul of the system.

Officials at the Indigenous Affairs Department insist government funding is being phased in over time deliberately because it has heard from agencies about the challenges of hiring and retaining staff, as well as the need for time to roll out new programming.

They also say the government is implementing the tribunal’s findings.

Blackstock said she has yet to find one report that recommends an advisor despite more than 20 years experience on the file.

“What is necessary is that Canada invests in equity at the level of other children, providing prevention services that meets the needs of these kids and acts on the recommendations on the books,” Blackstock said. “The disciminator in this case, the federal government, is calling the shots and wants everyone to get in line behind them.”

Sinclair’s comments highlight the immediate need to address the underfunding in First Nations child welfare, she added.

“Reconciliation means not saying sorry twice,” Blackstock said. “That’s what Justice Sinclair is reminding of us of. When I went to the TRC hearings, I heard survivor after survivor after survivor saying ‘I’m telling this story so it doesn’t happen to my grandkids.’ And it is happening to their grandkids.”

Last Wednesday, the Manitoba legislature passed a motion condemning the federal government for its response to the tribunal’s ruling.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/murray-sinclair-on-fn-child-welfare-immediate-action-is-required/feed/0NDP plan to force government action on First Nations child welfarehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/ndp-plan-to-force-government-action-on-first-nations-child-welfare/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/ndp-plan-to-force-government-action-on-first-nations-child-welfare/#commentsWed, 26 Oct 2016 21:46:42 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=942759The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that the government discriminates against First Nations children in its delivery of child welfare services on reserves

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould, left, looks on as Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett speaks about the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, January 26, 2016. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

OTTAWA — The New Democrats say they plan to turn up the political pressure on the Liberal government to take action on First Nations child welfare.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that the government discriminates against First Nations children in its delivery of child welfare services on reserves, and has since issued two compliance orders to compel the Liberals to act.

The NDP plans to introduce a motion Thursday calling on the government to comply with the ruling _ first with an immediate $155-million cash injection, then with a funding plan for future years.

“We are losing children every single day in our communities dying from suicide, children being taken away from their parents and put into a broken foster care system,” NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus told a news conference Wednesday.

“We are asking Parliament to take responsibility for this. It will be up to Parliament to force this government to meet their legal obligations for the protection of children who are suffering in a broken system, suffering systemic discrimination and suffering from hopelessness.”

The party also wants the government to adopt Jordan’s Principle, which says no aboriginal child should suffer denials, delays or disruptions of health services available to other children due to jurisdictional disputes.

The principle is named for Jordan Anderson, a Cree boy from Norway House, Man., who died in hospital in 2005 after jurisdictional disagreements kept him from spending his last years in home care.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has been insisting for months that her government is committed to overhauling child welfare services on reserve.

During question period Wednesday, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for action, but the answer he got was non-committal.

“Canadian governments over the past years and, indeed, generations have failed indigenous people with not giving them the respect, the tools, or the support needed to be able to be successful,” said Trudeau, whose government has made resetting its relationship with Aboriginal Peoples a policy cornerstone.

“We know that is something that is going to take time to turn around. It is why we are investing a historic $8.4 billion over the next five years to begin to fix these terrible wrongs. We know that there is much more to do, and we continue to work on that.”

Earlier this month, new federal documents filed with the tribunal suggest that federal funding levels for First Nations child welfare had been determined well before the tribunal ordered the government to increase it.

Advocates like Cindy Blackstock, the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and a longtime crusader for child welfare funding, took that as a sign that the government had no intention of complying with the tribunal’s orders.

Since the release of the spring budget, Blackstock has been pushing the Liberal government to immediately increase the level of funding earmarked for services on the ground.

She has pegged the need this year alone at no less than $200 million, rather than the $70 million contained within the fiscal blueprint released last spring.

]]>KELOWNA, B.C. – First Nations leaders have urged the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to encourage the British Columbia and federal governments to take their issues seriously, marking the second straight day of the royal tour that aboriginal leaders expressed frustration.

Chief John Kruger of the Penticton Indian Band spoke directly to Prince William and Kate during an event at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus on Tuesday, urging them to advocate for reconciliation for Aboriginal Peoples.

“True reconciliation involves the honour of the Crown, the federal government, provincial government and the indigenous people of this land.”

Kruger was standing in for Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, who has boycotted royal events. His members, which represents more than half of the 203 First Nations in the province, voted that he should not attend reconciliation events with the royals.

Grand Chief Ed John of the First Nation Summit spoke at the Black Rod Ceremony in Victoria on Monday and used his time at the podium to make an even stronger plea.

John said the status quo hasn’t served indigenous peoples well as he noted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has determined there was cultural genocide against his people.

“The current Crown approaches of deny and delay cannot continue. We cannot hope that our future means more litigation or protests on the land, as we see now.”

He said when Canada became a country it wrongly pursued laws to proselytize indigenous people to become Christians with the residential schools.

“The purpose of these schools was to kill the Indian in the child. The impacts, including indigenous language loss, have been deep, and now intergenerational.”

During the ceremony, Prince William added a ring of reconciliation to the Black Rod, which is used in the legislature when the Queen or her provincial representative is present. The ring is meant to represent the connection between the Crown, indigenous peoples and all British Columbians.

John said the reconciliation ring should guide future relationships between the Crown, governments and Aboriginal Peoples.

Marilyn Slett, Coastal First Nations president and Heiltsuk chief, said the royal visit to her community of Bella Bella on Monday represented an opportunity to continuing relationship building with the governments of Canada and B.C.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived in Kelowna on Tuesday for a tour of the city and a chance to sample British Columbia’s culinary scene.

The couple unveiled a plaque marking the 10th anniversary of the University of B.C. Okanagan campus, watch a demonstration by the women’s volleyball team and met with students.

They also stopped at the Mission Hill Family Estate to view the vineyard and learn about the province’s agrifood sector at the Taste of British Columbia Festival.

They are spending Wednesday in Yukon.

The Canadian Press erroneously reported on Tuesday that Grand Chief Ed John of the First Nation Summit filled in for Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, at a Black Rod Ceremony in Victoria on Monday during the royal visit of Prince William and Kate. In fact, John was previously scheduled to participate in the ceremony. This version contains the correction.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/royals-first-nation-reconciliation/feed/0Orthodontics a huge challenge for Northern residentshttp://www.macleans.ca/society/orthodontics-a-huge-challenge-for-northern-residents/
http://www.macleans.ca/society/orthodontics-a-huge-challenge-for-northern-residents/#respondMon, 19 Sep 2016 11:57:10 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=924137An acute lack of dental care in the North means 465 flights a year to get braces fitted and tightened

To get to the orthodontist, 15-year-old Tabatha Cook flies 257 km, equipped with clothes for up to three days. Her town of Baker Lake, Nunavut, has nobody to adjust her braces, so she flies to the slightly larger town of Rankin Inlet, population 2,577. Seven of her classmates, with their own parents or guardians, join her in varying numbers on the bi-monthly commute. After the flight, they take taxis to a hotel to drop their luggage and rush to get to the dental office, usually on time. “I regret getting braces,” says Tabatha. She falls behind on school work and once had to reschedule an exam—“just to change a wire.”

Orthodontic odysseys are routine for teenagers in the remote North. Health Canada covers orthodontics for Indigenous Canadians under the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program, as long as treatments are “medically necessary because their ability to chew is impaired.” Yet, patients must be patient. In 2014-15, residents flew from the 50 municipalities across the territories to one of the six northern towns or cities that have a visiting orthodontist. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show these trips cost $3 million and required 465 flights, including for parents or other escorts. (Actual cost of treatment was $5 million.) Assuming all trips required four flights, as they do for Tabatha and her mother, and that each child travels with an escort, then the average travel cost was $25,806 to get to each appointment.

“Unfortunately we often have to pay for frequent transportation,” says Sony Perron, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada, responsible for First Nations and Inuit health. Orthodontists visit the six largest northern communities for three or four days every two months, seeing patients back-to-back while in town. The orthodontist who works in Rankin Inlet is based in Victoria. Since he is paid on a fee-for-service basis, it would not be lucrative for him to spend weeks flying to each patient in the North. Dental hygienists and dental therapists (a profession only recognized in the territories, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador) can clean teeth, fill cavities and take impressions, and communities even smaller than Baker Lake have them in residence. Yet orthodontics is beyond their scope of practice. “We have to adhere to that reality,” says Perron.

Medical transportation accounts for more than one-third of expenditures for the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program. “It’s not sustainable,” says Jeff Reading, a chair on the First Nations Health Authority at Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital. He warns that Health Canada won’t be able to afford the current transportation expenses forever, given the aging population and high birth rate in the North. “We basically give people what they need until the money runs out,” he says. “It’s like a train heading toward a wall.”

For now, braces come with boarding passes. Tabatha flew to her first appointment in April 2015—she had a misaligned jaw and crooked teeth—and in June, she had to delay a social studies exam for a wire adjustment. In blizzards, Tabatha was twice stranded in Rankin Inlet, while her mother, Cheryl, lost hours at her job at a crafts store. “I can guarantee you, we’re not sleeping,” says Cheryl. “We’re just sitting in chairs watching TV until morning comes so we can get on a plane and go home.”

Calm Air and First Air, the two northern airlines in Canada, signed a codeshare agreement in June 2015, leaving northerners with fewer flight options. “That’s another thing that screwed up our ways,” says Cheryl. “My daughter is not a happy girl in having to travel away from Baker [Lake] . . . Tabby mopes on Facebook. It’s constant complaining.”

Pregnancy, diabetes, asthma, wounds—other health concerns also require travel. Martin Kreelak, a 64-year-old man from Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut, flew to Winnipeg last year for nose surgery. “Having to travel all the way with your nose plugged and bandaged, that was a torture,” he says of the return trip. “Inuit have a lot of patience to have to travel that far.”

Occasionally, patients try to resist medical travel. When Cheryl was pregnant with her eighth child in 2014, she knew she would be considered high-risk and sent to Winnipeg early. “When I was pregnant, I kept my mouth shut about it because I didn’t want to go,” she says. She eventually went for her annual check-up and was sent to Winnipeg six weeks before her due date, without her family. “It’s heart-wrenching when you can only hear your kids on your phone,” she says. In cases where the woman refuses to leave, she will give birth at the health centre in Baker Lake, then be urged to go to Winnipeg for a doctor to monitor the newborn.

Alternatives are possible. Health Canada is looking to sign more contracts with health professionals to visit communities more regularly, as Perron admits that the department has “not enough” of these contracts. In some dental fields, the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program is talking with licensing boards in the territories about training dental hygenists and dental therapists to do more procedures. Digital health care also holds promise; the government funds Infoway, an organization designed to connect doctors with patients remotely, although none of its current projects involve orthodontics. In the future, teenagers could get their braces tightened by generalist health workers at home and consult the orthodontist by phone or videocall.

Until then, Tabatha’s teeth demand travel. She’ll visit her orthodontist again in October —“I always wanted straight teeth”—but the appointment will seem too short to justify the journey. As her mother explains, “They’ll work on her teeth maybe five, 10 minutes, and then we’re stuck in Rankin Inlet until the next flight takes us home.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/society/orthodontics-a-huge-challenge-for-northern-residents/feed/0Federal government apologizes to Sayisi Dene in Manitobahttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/federal-government-to-apologize-to-sayisi-dene-in-manitoba/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/federal-government-to-apologize-to-sayisi-dene-in-manitoba/#commentsTue, 16 Aug 2016 10:27:19 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=912935One-third of First Nations community died after relocation in northern Manitoba 60 years ago

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould, left, looks on as Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett speaks about First Nations children. (Adrian Wyld, CP)

TADOULE LAKE, Man. — The federal government has formally apologized and provided compensation for the forced relocation of a First Nations community in northern Manitoba 60 years ago.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett visited the Sayisi Dene on Tuesday to apologize for the 1956 move that led to hunger, violence and death.

“Without proper consultation, without explanation and without adequate planning, the federal government took your people from the land and the waters that sustained you,” Bennett said in prepared remarks.

“The government of Canada did not provide proper food, shelter or support following the relocation. Decades later, we recognize that the impacts of the relocation were catastrophic.”

About 250 Sayisi Dene were forced out of Duck Lake to a barren area near Churchill, partly because the Manitoba government believed they were causing a steep decline in the caribou herd _ an idea later proven untrue.

In the new location, food was scarce and housing inadequate. The Dene were forced to scavenge the dump and were assaulted by Churchill residents.

About one-third of the relocated Dene died “as a result of poverty, racism and violence,” the Manitoba government said in a 2010 apology for its role.

Chief Ernest Bussidor, who was born one month before the relocation said many have suffered post-traumatic stress.

“I probably witnessed a lot more tragic events than I should have … and most of us of that generation have that same notion,” Bussidor said Monday.

“A lot of children died. That kind of stuff never leaves you.

“People freezing to death, fires, you name it,” Bussidor recalled.

In 1973, the Sayisi Dene moved back to their traditional territory at Tadoule Lake.

“It is unbearable to consider what you lost during the years in Churchill,” Bennett said.

“No one, and no people, should have had to experience such treatment in Canadian society.”

The federal apology comes with a $33.6-million settlement package, aimed partly at economic development, which was approved by the community three years ago. Bussidor said the money will help the community’s youth, but seems a bit “hollow” given decades of suffering.

“I’m an elder now. I’m 60 today, and 60 years it took for the government to step up and say that something was wrongfully done to your people.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/federal-government-to-apologize-to-sayisi-dene-in-manitoba/feed/3Saskatchewan: A special report on race and powerhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan-a-special-report-on-race-and-power/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan-a-special-report-on-race-and-power/#commentsFri, 29 Jul 2016 17:29:42 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=905671How many Indigenous people are in positions of power in Saskatchewan? We surveyed 265 of the most powerful people in the province. The results are shocking.

Lee Prosper grew up in Saskatoon and Regina. The Willow Cree 28-year-old, of the One Arrow First Nation in central Saskatchewan, is a support worker in Regina’s troubled North Central neighbourhood, and a reconciliation facilitator. He’s training to be a teacher at the University of Regina, and just finished a term as president of the university’s Indigenous Students Association.

Growing up, none of this seemed possible. The future, for a First Nations youth, seemed limited, he says. He saw no Indigenous mayors in Saskatchewan, no Indigenous chiefs of police, no Indigenous CEOs. He never once considered those positions “attainable” for a First Nations person. “It felt like we were in a wholly different class.”

Prosper makes clear he is “not one bit racist,” but those titles seemed reserved for Saskatchewan’s white majority. That’s just the way things were, he says with a shrug. Prosper figured he was destined for fast food work or construction, if he was lucky.

Life, to him and the First Nations kids he knew, was limited to what he calls “our neighbourhoods”—racialized communities like North Central, a majority First Nations neighbourhood near Regina’s core, and Pleasant Hill, Saskatoon’s equivalent. “We were on our own.” Beyond those borders, Prosper says, racism was “a normal thing.” The mayors and MPs he saw on television and the front pages of newspapers who looked nothing like him telegraphed a clear message, he says: You don’t belong.

Right now, 22 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population is non-white: 16 per cent Indigenous, and 6.3 per cent visible minority—figures that are expected to jump when new census figures are released early next year. And yet Saskatchewan’s power structure does not reflect its changing face.

In the course of reporting a story earlier this year about the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in provincial jails,Maclean’s heard complaints of representational deficiencies in the province’s power structure; the magazine undertook a survey that looked at the 265 most powerful people in government, justice, business, and education. Just 17 positions were ﬁlled by non-white people—1.8 per cent by visible minorities, and 4.5 per cent by Metis or First Nations peoples. The mayors of Saskatchewan’s nine biggest cities are white. So are all but one of the chiefs of police and 18 of 19 city councillors in its two major cities, Saskatoon and Regina, the presidents of its two universities and its biggest college, its six major sports teams.

Saskatchewan has never elected a visible minority candidate to the House of Commons, or to the council chambers of Saskatoon or Regina, say academics, political staff and city clerks in Regina and Saskatoon. In the last election, the province made history when it elected Muhammad Fiaz, the first visible minority to sit in the province’s Legislative Assembly, a milestone that surprised even Fiaz, he tells Maclean’s. (Neighbouring Manitoba did this nearly four decades ago.)

Just one of the province’s 21 Crown corporations and one of the six Saskatchewan-based, publicly-traded businesses are headed by a visible minority: Rupen Pandya is president and CEO of SaskBuilds, which manages the province’s large-scale infrastructure projects, and Murad Al-Katib is president and CEO of agribusiness giant Alliance Grain Traders.

In perhaps the most glaring omission of minority voices, just two of the 101 judges in the province—where 81 per cent of those sentenced to provincial custody are Indigenous, higher than in any other province—is either First Nations or Metis.

Therein lies the rub, says Saskatchewan MLA Nicole Sarauer, formerly a lawyer with Pro Bono Law Saskatchewan. The problem isn’t just the unrepresentative power structure, it’s the vast “disconnect” between those making decisions and those most impacted by them. Without adequate representation, the concerns of Indigenous voices are more easily overlooked, which helps spur the growth of the appalling socioeconomic gap dividing Saskatchewan’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations.

Indigenous people in Saskatchewan are, for example, 33 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous person—higher odds than an African American in the U.S., or a black South African at the height of apartheid.

Yet calls for an inquiry into Saskatchewan’s over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples continue to fall on deaf ears, despite studies showing that Indigenous offenders in Saskatchewan are being sentenced to more than twice the jail time as their non-Indigenous counterparts. Ignored as well are calls for measures to try to stem the tide, like the 12 First Nations courts that B.C. and Ontario implemented a decade ago. (A Cree-language court operates in Saskatchewan’s north.)

In dozens of interviews with officials, academics and elected representatives, none denied a problem. “I see this as a major weakness in our community,” says Saskatoon councillor Mairin Loewen. “It’s deeply troubling to have a government that doesn’t look like the population,” she says, adding that Saskatchewan also has one of the lowest rates of female mayors and municipal councillors—just 17 per cent, according to data from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Loewen blames the “legacy of racism” for the lack of minority voices at the table. “I have all sorts of privilege allowing me to be elected and re-elected—that’s not the case for everyone. Putting yourself out there in a community where racism is a reality can be a daunting prospect.”

Critics point to three intersecting problems, starting with racism, which makes it harder for Indigenous people to break through. And the less likely they are to see themselves reflected in the top echelons of power, the harder it becomes to force their way in, says University of Saskatchewan political scientist Joe Garcea, noting an Indigenous “glass ceiling” keeps many from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. Finally, Marilyn Poitras, a Harvard-educated Metis law professor at the University of Saskatchewan, believes that “the people doing the appointing are more interested in filling authority placeholders with others who look like them, think like them, and talk like them.”

Although Regina Mayor Michael Fougere concedes these figures are “quite low,” he adds, “You never force anyone to run for office. You encourage as best you can. But they choose to run.”

Indigenous people have traditionally sought power on band councils—initially because they were denied the federal right to vote until 1960. Others have noted that surging immigration rates are a relatively recent phenomenon in Saskatchewan, beginning a decade ago, spurred by the province’s then-booming economy. Because of this, Garcea believes there still isn’t a “critical mass” allowing potential visible-minority candidates to form a community base from which to launch campaigns. He thinks Saskatchewan may be at an “earlier stage of political integration of its visible minority communities,” noting it took two generations for Ukrainian-Canadian politicians, like former Saskatchewan MP and governor general Ray Hnatyshyn and former premier Roy Romanow, to break through Saskatchewan’s decades-long pattern of “electing people, almost entirely, of British descent.”

Right now, Saskatchewan’s combined visible minority and Indigenous population ranks it among the five most diverse provinces, behind Ontario (28.3 per cent), Manitoba (29.8 per cent) and Alberta (24.6 per cent), but well ahead of provinces like Quebec (12.8 per cent) and New Brunswick (5.4 per cent).

In neighbouring Manitoba, whose demographic portrait most closely mirrors Saskatchewan’s (Indigenous people in Manitoba make up 16.7 per cent of the population, and its visible minority population is 13.1 per cent), the power structure is starting to look a bit more like the population it serves. Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman is Metis. Mike Pagtakhan, the city’s deputy mayor, is of Filipino descent. Devon Clunis, the city’s outgoing police chief, is Jamaican-born.

This spring, the University of Winnipeg’s associate vice-president of Indigenous affairs Wab Kinew, one of Manitoba’s most visible university administrators, was elected to the provincial legislature. In a step backwards, Premier Brian Pallister appointed an all-white cabinet shortly after, and made headlines earlier this month by striking two minority voices from Winnipeg’s police board. But Manitoba’s Opposition NDP caucus is 50 per cent Indigenous and visible minority. And the party seems to be gearing up to run a powerful Indigenous voice against Pallister in the next election.

Three of the NDP’s potential leadership candidates are Indigenous, and they are powerhouses: Kinew, a writer and former broadcaster; tireless Port Douglas MLA Kevin Chief, a retail politician in the mould of former premier Gary Doer; and rookie MLA Nahanni Fontaine, who helped bring the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women to national attention. They’ve forged a deal, according to an NDP source: Only one will run for leadership, and will receive the backing of the NDP’s Indigenous caucus.

The gap between Saskatchewan’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations is deep and troubling.

An Indigenous child born today in Saskatchewan is 13 times more likely to be apprehended by child protection authorities than a non-Indigenous child in the province. (Fully 83 per cent of kids in care in Saskatchewan are Indigenous, a rate second only to Manitoba, where 87 per cent of children in care are Indigenous. Studies show that only a third of children in care will graduate high school.)

They will be six times more likely to be murdered than the national average. (Manitoba has the country’s highest Indigenous homicide rate. There, Indigenous people are nine times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous Manitobans.)

They face a 60 per cent dropout rate from high school, versus 55 per cent in Manitoba.

If they remain on reserve, they are 11 times more likely to contract HIV than a non-Indigenous person in Saskatchewan. No province has a higher on-reserve HIV rate; in fact, some Saskatchewan First Nations have HIV rates equal to African nations like Nigeria and the Central African Republic.

Social scientists and Indigenous leaders say it’s even tougher to overcome odds like these when the wider population is distrustful, unsympathetic or unaware of the reasons things look the way they do.

A June poll by Environics showed that more people in Saskatchewan than any other province blame “Aboriginal peoples themselves,” for their problems (41 per cent, versus 26 per cent nationally). Respondents in Saskatchewan were least likely to consider Indigenous culture and history “important” to the Canadian identity (44 per cent, versus 63 per cent for Atlantic Canada and 61 per cent for Ontario). And they were most likely to see the relationship between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in a “negative” light (60 per cent, versus 40 per cent in B.C.).

While roughly half of Canadians acknowledge that systemic barriers facing non-white Canadians make it harder for them to get ahead, Prairie respondents (a data set that also includes Manitobans) are least likely to accept this—just 36 per cent, according to a 2015 Environics poll.

Part of the problem is the poor job Canada is doing educating its young people about federal policies that forced Indigenous tribes onto reserves, the pass system that imprisoned them there. Many of the country’s ugliest episodes, like Canada’s largest mass execution, occurred in Saskatchewan. On Nov. 27, 1885, eight Cree men were hanged in North Battleford for their role in the Northwest Rebellion, an act intended to “convince the Red Man that the White Man governs,” according to the reasoning of prime minister John A. Macdonald. Indigenous children were pulled from classes at the local residential school and forced to witness the mass hanging, a grotesque warning not to cross the Crown.

This horrific history, from hangings to residential schools, right up to the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, has left an enormous gulf of distrust between communities, one that will take targeted efforts to overcome.

“Growing up, I was taught to be fearful of white people, of authorities—they were the ones who took us away,” says Regina resident Darren Maxie, who was removed from his home on the White Bear First Nation at age eight, after his mother’s death, and sent to Gordon’s Residential School, a notorious institution north of the city. “I learned to always be guarded. That’s how I could protect myself, my family.

“It is their system, not ours,” he adds. “Every institution belongs to them. We are not allowed in.” The dynamic, he adds, is one of “master and slave.” This is what forces protest—the only means of power available. But “finding the courage” to do even that can be tough. “When I see white people protest in Regina, I don’t see people honk at them, or yell at them to get a job. Police don’t break it up, or intimidate protesters, asking people to show their ID. That’s what happens whenever we march, or try to advocate for ourselves: We’re confronted by hate. We’re treated like criminals, like terrorists.”

Lee Prosper grew up decades after Maxie, around the time Saskatchewan’s last residential school was shuttered, in 1995. As a child, he sometimes relied on soup kitchens and food banks, especially after his father died by suicide. He was 13. Thereafter, his family “fell apart.”

Growing up, it seemed “everyone was coming out of residential school,” including both his parents. “It felt like we were a sleeping nation. It was like we had no grip on social skills, the avenues to get ahead.”

Saskatchewan is beginning to make progress in diversifying government, however. Its provincial legislature is now 11 per cent visible minority, First Nations and Metis. A decade ago, that figure seemed stalled at three per cent. And after the last election, Premier Brad Wall added a lone Indigenous voice to cabinet: Jennifer Campeau, a member of the Yellow Quill First Nation, minister of central services and the minister responsible for the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

Both the Regina Police Services and Saskatoon Police Services were ordered to better reflect the communities they serve—the RPS in 1995, by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, the SPS in 2003, part of the recommendations of the public inquiry into the death of Cree teen Neil Stonechild. Both have since made big strides: The RPS is now 9.7 per cent Indigenous and 5.4 per cent visible minority. And the SPS is 11.5 per cent Indigenous, and 4.8 per cent visible minority, according to figures made available to Maclean’s. Even tiny forces like Moose Jaw’s have begun targeted recruitment to diversify, says Chief Rick Bourassa, though he acknowledges efforts are still in their “infancy.”

Indigenizing the University of Saskatchewan and closing the education gap is the university’s “top priority” going forward, says president Peter Stoicheff. It is creating a new vice-provost position for Indigenous engagement, and saw Indigenous enrolment hit 11 per cent last fall. Earlier this month, Lee Ahenakew, a business leader from the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, was elected chair of the board of governors, and the university’s three previous student union presidents were all Indigenous.

The University of Regina, which saw Indigenous enrolment hit 12 per cent last fall, is in the process of renaming buildings, residences and streets using Cree, Dene and Dakota words. They’ve bumped up bursaries, scholarships and a range of supports for the Indigenous student body, president Vianne Timmons tells Maclean’s.

Saskatoon and Regina have also set out to build more diverse civic workforces: 7.7 per cent of Regina’s full-time employees, and 8.6 per cent of Saskatoon’s workforce are now Indigenous.

Private industry is also engaged. One of the Saskatoon Blades’ two directors is Metis, and the team has turned to the Saskatoon Tribal Council to help recruit hockey staff and players, according to president Steve Hogle. Last spring, the Regina Pats appointed Marty Klyne, a Metis businessman, as chief operating officer. Uranium giant Cameco, Canada’s largest industrial employer of Indigenous people, tells Maclean’s it is providing training and assistance to ensure the ascent of Indigenous employees to more senior roles.

Indeed, the province’s old power structure may crater as more and more minority police officers, miners and hockey executives scale the ranks.

Correcting the “stark” imbalance in Saskatchewan’s power structure isn’t just a numbers game, says Poitras, the legal scholar; it’s also about building more effective power structures and organizations. Decades of research—by sociologists, psychologists, economists and organizational scientists—bears this out. Studies show that racially diverse groups are more innovative. They’re better at solving complex problems. And they improve the way people think. (They might even make better business sense: Global consulting giant McKinsey & Company last year reported that companies in the top quartile for diversity were more likely to report returns above the industry median.) Sometimes, they help redress inequity.

In 2006, B.C. judge Marion Buller-Bennett, who was raised on the Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan, quietly launched B.C.’s First Nations Court as a pilot project with no budget in a New Westminster provincial courthouse. The program, which recently added a fourth courtroom, in Kamloops, has helped cut recidivism rates for participating Indigenous offenders.

When minister Campeau was a Ph.D. student at the University of Saskatchewan, she was part of a vocal group of Indigenous student leaders who forced the university to focus on Indigenization and inclusion. It has since become a core U of S mandate.

When NDP justice critic Nicole Sarauer was once a newly elected female Regina Catholic School Board trustee, she pushed the board to include three nuns to its advisory council; until then, only male church authorities had been advising the board, which subsequently adopted more inclusive policies and protections for LGBT students.

Prince Albert Police Service Chief Troy Cooper says his Metis heritage has been “invaluable” in his role as a police leader in a community where half of high school students are Indigenous, giving him “deeper and personal” knowledge of the issues and struggles of Indigenous people, and the reasons some continue to distrust police.

For one thing, “trust comes easier if the community sees themselves in the members of the service,” Cooper says. “It removes the idea that the police are something imposed on them.”

It all comes back to a basic truth: Representation matters. Kids notice when people who look like them are not represented. It sends a message they are unable, that they don’t fit.

Wab Kinew says his “life was changed” the day he saw then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama speak in South Dakota in 2008. “Until that time, I was skeptical of how far an Indigenous person or member of a visible minority could go in North America,” he later wrote in the Winnipeg Free Press. He felt minority candidates would forever be relegated to “token” status. All that fell apart when he saw Obama win over a room full of skeptical tribal leaders.

That is the “remarkable” thing about role models, Kinew wrote: “The conversation changes from ‘What if?’ to ‘He or she did it; so can I.’ ”

For Lee Prosper, there was no such Obama moment. Ten years ago, when he was a teen, the birth of his son Jordan transformed him: “It felt as if suddenly, I wasn’t living for myself anymore.” He needed to support his baby, but he was being turned down for job after job, pushing him to “rock bottom.” Instead of becoming discouraged, Prosper became fixated on getting ahead. Tiny accomplishments kept “snowballing,” each one leading to the next, bigger step.

Prosper sees change all around him now, as the community recovers from the effects of residential schools, as awareness and understanding spread among Canadians about parts of history once excluded from our textbooks. For now, Prosper is intent on being a mentor for his son, the model he never had.

]]>OTTAWA — A new $382-million government announcement on First Nations child welfare is raising as many questions as it answers, aboriginal leaders and advocates say.

Late Tuesday, federal ministers announced they were implementing what’s known as Jordan’s Principle, a policy designed to ensure First Nations children do not get caught up in bureaucratic spending disputes between layers of government.

In Manitoba, Health Minister Jane Philpott announced the government will spend an additional $382 million over three years for that program.

The announcement came just one day before Ottawa was required to prove to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that it is not discriminating against First Nations children in delivery of child welfare services.

But the details took aboriginal leaders by surprise and left many people scratching their heads.

“It’s important that aspects of Jordan’s Principle are being implemented,” commented Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day.

“But funds should also be put in place for all services, such as social, education and other investments — not just health dollars. As the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal pointed out earlier this year, there exists unequal levels of health care — and all social services — that indigenous children in Canada receive compared to non-indigenous children.”

In the government’s submission to the human rights tribunal on Wednesday, Indigenous Affairs said it has begun working with First Nations child welfare agencies to reform child welfare and to eliminate any discrimination in levels of service.

Plus, in a nod to its new approach to Jordan’s Principle, the government said it will ensure that all children living on reserve with a disability or a short-term condition get quick access to any help they require — regardless of what may be happening in the bureaucracy.

But Sheila North Wilson, the grand chief of an organization representing First Nations in northern Manitoba, said she is concerned that the Jordan’s Principle announcement only refers to health and social services, and doesn’t extend to other government services such as education.

“We can’t get services to our children fast enough,” she said.

“I hope … that this is just the beginning of their commitments to indigenous people and families and children.”

Cindy Blackstock, who runs one of the organizations that filed the original child-welfare complaint with the human rights tribunal, said she is reviewing Tuesday’s announcement and Wednesday submission to the tribunal.

It is problematic the government appears to be using a flawed oversight process to assess and oversee the application of Jordan’s Principle, she said.

“The (government’s) fact sheet leads us to believe that the two assistant deputy ministers are from Health and Indigenous Affairs are going to oversee it but in my view, this needs some independent oversight,” Blackstock said in an interview.

“Those two departments are responsible for the discriminatory definition and implementation of Jordan’s Principle so it shouldn’t be just left to them to oversee this process.”

Blackstock also wants to know how much money will go directly to children and how the government plans to address denied cases.

She has been deeply critical of the government’s level of funding for child welfare services. Her calculations peg the need at more than $200 million per year while the government’s budget earmarked $71 million.

That’s above and beyond the $382-million for implementing Jordan’s Principle.

The debate over funding that ensued following the budget’s release was slap in the face, added regional chief Day.

He leads his organization’s health portfolio.

“It is a slap in the face to the tribunal,” he said.

“It is a slap in the face to our First Nations and their families, and it is a slap in the face to the residential school survivors who were really the assault on our child welfare.”

In its six-year examination of the Canada’s residential school legacy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission flagged the number of indigenous children in care as a key issue to be addressed.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/first-nations-leaders-leery-of-announcement-on-child-welfare/feed/0Why it’s time to clearly define the Crown’s role with First Nationshttp://www.macleans.ca/society/why-its-time-to-define-the-crowns-role-with-first-nations/
http://www.macleans.ca/society/why-its-time-to-define-the-crowns-role-with-first-nations/#commentsTue, 21 Jun 2016 00:27:51 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=888965The role of the Queen's representative with respect to First Nations can no longer depend on the goodwill of a particular governor general

Governor General David Johnston (centre) attends a powwow at the Summer Solstice Aboriginal Arts Festival in Ottawa, Saturday June 21, 2014. (Fred Chartrand/CP)

While David Johnston prepared to join the Queen for her birthday celebrations in London earlier this month, fourteen chiefs (some on horseback) joined 500 protestors outside the gates to Rideau Hall. The chiefs demanded a meeting with the Queen, or her representative, so they could personally deliver an engraved staff and a set of recommendations to improve the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples.

“[The Queen] has to take responsibility for the Native people,” explained Grand Chief Guillaume Carle. “Our rights are protected by the Queen and not the government of Canada.”

Most Canadians don’t realize that for Indigenous Peoples, Canada’s place in its Treaty relationships is not fulfilled by the government of the day, but rather by the Crown—specifically the Queen. Canadians have a vague understanding of the Crown in Canada and its place at the very heart of our democracy. Indeed, trying to understand the delicate bonds holding this Confederation together is impossible without encountering its constitutional monarchy. However, what people need to realize is that the relationship between the Sovereign and Indigenous Peoples is at the heart of any Treaty. Remove the Crown from Confederation and the whole family could come apart—delete the Sovereign from Treaties and Canada’s very existence becomes impossible.

Far more than simply contracts, Treaties tied Indigenous Peoples and the Sovereign together as members of a family, bound in love so that they could meet the many challenges that their radically different worldviews would face.

Despite efforts by the likes of Sir John A. Macdonald, the personal relationships between the monarch and Indigenous Peoples were not fully extinguished following Confederation, providing Canadians with a way to rekindle their Treaty relationships. Enshrined by the Constitution Act of 1982, Treaties remain the nucleus of Canada’s modern relationship with Indigenous Nations; this includes their explicit references to bonds with the Sovereign. In his recent collection of letters The Idea of Canada, Governor General David Johnston reflects in “What’s a Monarchy For?”: “[The Crown] can assert itself as strong and unique in the emerging theatre of North America, and it [can] be flexible enough to meet the varied needs of its citizens—original inhabitants and immigrants alike—as those needs evolved.” We are witnessing such an evolution today.

As Canada’s oldest institution, the monarchy continues to embrace the Queen’s personal relationships with First Nations. Looking at one such relationship, in 2010 the Queen herself gifted two sets of silver hand bells to the Haudenosaunee Peoples to acknowledge the 300th anniversary of the Silver Covenant Chain of Friendship established with Queen Anne. These gifts were destined for the only two Chapels Royal (clergy that serve the spiritual needs of the Sovereign) outside of the United Kingdom—both situated in Haudenosaunee territory.

Canada’s vice regal team have also been involved in fostering reconciliation. It was British Columbia’s lieutenant governor, the Hon. Iona Campagnolo, that first visited a residential school site (St. Michaels) when she participated in a cleansing ceremony at Alert Bay in 2003 (This National Aboriginal Day Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell will host a visit to Brantford’s Mohawk Institute, the country’s first residential school, that will include the governor general and members of the Princes’ Charities Canada). Michaëlle Jean, in her role as governor general, was the first to witness survivor accounts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. David Johnston was one of the last.

More can be done. Without official direction from their governments, or a comprehensive policy articulating the role of the Sovereign as Treaty partner, efforts by the Queen’s representatives to engage with First Nations depend on the personal interest of the incumbents (often times resetting with each new officeholder). Vice regal relationships with Indigenous Peoples run the risk of being piecemeal and inconsistent from province to province.

“The Treaty roles of the governor general and lieutenant governors in relation to Indigenous Peoples is the single greatest area of consternation,” explains Rick Hill (Senior Project Coordinator with the Six Nations Polytechnic Indigenous Knowledge Centre near Brantford). He goes on to add “It highlights an identity crisis concerning the role of the Crown.”

Maintaining the historic and personal relationships between Her Majesty and Indigenous Peoples must become one of the official and publicized duties of the representatives of the Crown in Canada, and should be promoted as a key and contemporary responsibility as important as their duty to ensure there is always a prime minister or premier in place.

Remarking on a wampum belt presented to him in 2012, and currently displayed at Rideau Hall, David Johnston once remarked, “[It’s] a reminder of the covenant that binds us [Indigenous Peoples and Canadians] and of my responsibilities as a representative of the Crown.” Such a statement needs to be properly defined and implemented for every vice regal office. The role of the representative of the Queen with respect to Indigenous Peoples can no longer depend on the goodwill of a particular governor general or lieutenant governor. Rather, the personal relationship must become entrenched in our democracy, including the language we use to describe it.

The Queen, on behalf of Canadians, is bound in Treaties across the land, cementing familial relationships with First Nations. Families have the ability to survive seemingly insurmountable trauma, but they can only do so together. If Canada is truly committed to reconciling a nation-to-nation relationship, then the Crown that allowed this country to germinate in these lands needs to be understood and embraced so we can restore ourselves as Treaty people.

Nathan Tidridge has written several books on the Crown’s relations with Indigenous peoples, including his most recent, The Queen at the Council Fire. A teacher of Canadian history and government, Nathan was appointed to the Ontario Heritage Trust Board of Directors and the Prince’s Charities Canada Advisory Council in 2015. Follow Nathan on twitter (@tidridge), or visit his website www.canadiancrown.com.

“Happy to be here, maybe a little surprised,” laughs Roy Henry Vickers, “but certainly happy.” One of the most acclaimed First Nations artists in modern Canadian history, the media-shy Vickers was referring to turning 70 earlier this month, and to the release of Peace Dancer, the final volume in his bestselling four-book Northwest Coast Legends series. Vickers may have more reason for surprise than the average newly minted septuagenarian, given the deadly chaos in his life 30 years ago. “My career took off like a rocket in 1987,” he says, “when my painting A Meeting of Chiefs was given to Queen Elizabeth II at the Vancouver Commonwealth summit. By 1992, I was making a million dollars a year, and all it did was feed my addictions.”

That’s the year he came home to Tofino, B.C., after “alcohol had made a shambles of my life,” to find his wife had left him, taking their two-year-old son with her. He contemplated killing himself, but decided to go to a clinic in Arizona, where two of his siblings had found help. But not before experiencing one of the singular events of his life. “I was on my boat, Eagle Dancer, when an eagle came out and flew straight at me. As it passed over, I gave an eagle call, and it turned in the air. When it did, a feather dropped from its tail. I ran my boat over to catch it, but it slipped through my fingers and landed on my chest. I knew it had to mean something.”

Everything began to change for Vickers as he emerged from recovery, from his ability to face his memories and emotions to his art. He had already displayed a tenacity in overcoming one artistic hurdle: partial colour-blindness. Vickers, paradoxically, decided to become an artist because his condition blocked his first ambition: “I wanted to join the RCMP but failed the medical because of the colour-blindness,” he recalls. He realized he could still flourish as a painter and printmaker in the traditional Northwest Coast Native style, where the only colours he really needed to know were red, black and grey.

But Vickers soon wanted to extend his palette, both to expand the appeal of Aboriginal art and to express his own mixed heritage. “My mother was the child of English immigrants, and my father was Tsimshian, Haida and Heiltsuk—all these peoples are in my blood.”

His work became more distinctive in its fusion of Western and native elements after he hit upon a way of keeping bright colours apart, and avoiding the blurry edges he couldn’t distinguish. In West Coast Sunset (1982), utilizing the form lines of traditional design, Vickers painted bands of grey—wisps of clouds, in fact—that cleanly separated his brighter colours.

His work changed again after he returned from Arizona. He began to add his so-called shadows, ghostly images meant to provide haunting layers of history and myth. His first, Vickers says, literally raised a ghost settlement. “I had painted an abandoned village and I wanted to convey its past, the village in time. So I added a faint image you could only see when the light was just right. Now people in my gallery walk by an image, wheel around, go back and say, ‘I saw something when I walked away, now it’s disappeared again.’ ”

The mythic element was part of Vickers’ newfound acceptance of his role as a storyteller—the meaning he eventually took from the feather that landed on him. “The elders told me the eagle feather always goes to the storyteller. It was time to realize that was my task.”

The Legends series, co-written with B.C. historian Robert Budd, is an outgrowth of the fusion of artist and storyteller in Vickers. Peace Dancer, its illustrations liberally sprinkled with shadow images, tells an ancient Tsimshian story about a great flood that arose from a single act of cruelty to a crow. Vickers first heard the story in 1975, began telling it decades later to thousands, and has now illustrated it. But his immersion in the story goes deeper still: Vickers, who inhabits his art like few other artists, also dances it. He is his people’s Peace Dancer, the chief who shakes eagle down at potlatches to remind everyone of the flood that came “when birds’ feathers were falling to the sea.”

]]>OTTAWA – The federal government is still racially discriminating against aboriginal children in its delivery of services on reserves, First Nations advocate Cindy Blackstock told a Commons committee on Thursday.

Her testimony comes amid an ongoing tug of war over the government’s response to a landmark ruling from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

One of the central issues is the $71 million the government earmarked in this year’s budget for child welfare – a figure far from sufficient, Blackstock said, pegging the actual need at around $200 million.

Blackstock also challenged the notion that there’s a capacity issue for the delivery of child welfare services.

The government has presented no evidence that more than 100 First Nations agencies, including many which have operated for more than two decades, are somehow all incapable of addressing and implementing services, Blackstock told the committee.

“If this was a gender or pay equity issue, I don’t think anybody would get away with saying women aren’t worthy of being treated equally today … that’s the type of argument we are seeing there.”

Responding to the tribunal is not a matter of juggling priorities but an issue of legal compliance, Blackstock added.

“That’s the uncomfortable reality we need to deal with … it is not (about) nice statements by me or by the government,” she said. “It is real change in federal government policy and funding levels.”

On Wednesday, Blackstock’s organization – the First Nations Family and Child Caring Society – submitted a strongly worded submission to the tribunal in response to the government’s compliance reports on child welfare.

In April, the tribunal ordered the federal government to provide detailed calculations and evidence on why it believes the last budget meets its obligations.

It also gave the Indigenous Affairs Department two weeks to confirm it has implemented Jordan’s Principle – a policy designed to ensure First Nations children can get services without getting caught in red tape.

The tribunal orders followed its January judgment that found the federal government discriminated against children on reserves in its funding of child welfare services.

Isadore Day, the Ontario regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations and the lead for its health portfolio, also pressed the government on Thursday to deliver concrete financial commitments for First Nations mental health.

Funding is critical to address the suicide crisis across the country, he said, noting the federal budget does not contain “historic” funding commitments to address this issue.

“It is status quo,” Day said in an interview. “Let’s face it: we don’t just need words, we need action … If these are preventable deaths, let’s do the investment that we need to.”

One of Day’s central recommendations is a call for bolstered funding for First Nations mental wellness teams across the country – a push backed by NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus.

At a recent Commons committee, Health Department official Tom Wong admitted the existing 10 teams fall far short of what is needed.

“As I said before, 10 teams is not sufficient and so we would like to actually increase it,” he said.

“If we look at 80 teams, we would be looking at $40 million to $50 million.”

Federal Minister of Health Jane Philpott leaves after a news conference following the final day of a meeting of provincial and territorial health ministers in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday January 21, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Health conditions on the ground in both aboriginal communities have attracted international headlines, particularly a flurry of attempted suicides in Attawapiskat, near the shores of James Bay.

NDP indigenous critic Charlie Angus, the MP for the riding that encompasses both reserves, says he is pleased Philpott is paying a visit.

Angus, who is travelling with the minister and indigenous leaders, is calling for concrete actions from the government, including changes to Health Canada’s program for delivering medical services to First Nations.

In April, Dr. Michael Kirlew, a doctor based in Sioux Lookout, Ont., told a Commons committee the government must make “drastic change” to save lives, noting the program creates unnecessary barriers for physicians trying to deliver care on reserves.

Attawapiskat’s chief Bruce Shisheesh is expected to sit down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa for a face-to-face meeting later this month.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/philpott-visits-two-embattled-northern-ontario-reserves/feed/1Ontario pledges $222 million to improve First Nations health carehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/ontario-pledges-222-million-to-improve-first-nations-health-care/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/ontario-pledges-222-million-to-improve-first-nations-health-care/#respondWed, 25 May 2016 20:30:08 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=877983An additional $104.5 million a year will kick in for the First Nations Health Action Plan after three years

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Premier Kathleen Wynne applaud as copies of the provincial budget are brought into the legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto on Thursday, April 23, 2015. (Nathan Denette/CP)

TORONTO – Ontario has pledged to spend $222 million over three years to improve health care for First Nations, especially in the north where aboriginal leaders declared a state of emergency because of a growing number of suicides.

The Liberal government also promised to contribute $104.5 million annually — after the initial three years — to the First Nations Health Action Plan, which will focus on primary care, public health, senior’s care, hospital services and crisis support.

The James Bay community of Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency in April because of an increasing number of suicides and suicide attempts, especially by young people.

“We have learned from the recent health emergency declarations that communities need support in times of crisis and need to know that they can count on the provincial government,” Health Minister Eric Hoskins said Wednesday.

“So we will establish dedicated funding, expanding supports including trauma response teams, suicide prevention training, positive community programming for youth, and we will fund more mental health workers in schools.”

Nishnawbe Aski Nation declared a public health emergency in February because of what their leaders called the “needless deaths and suffering” caused by the lack of access to even the most basic health services.

“My job as health minister is to ensure that every person in Ontario has equal access to high quality, culturally appropriate health care no matter where they live or who they are, and right now, in this province, that is not the case,” said Hoskins.

He told the story of a five-year-old boy in Sandy Lake First Nation who died before the state of emergency was declared from strep throat, which he said was easily curable with a seven-day course of penicillin.

“His death was a tragedy, and clearly would have been prevented anywhere else in this province,” said Hoskins.

Canada ranked No. 8 last year on the United Nations human development index, but the same indicators would place indigenous people in Canada at about 63, added Hoskins.

“These inequities can no longer be ignored,” he said. “It’s not up to First Nations to right the wrongs of colonization. Government must invest in meaningful and lasting solutions so communities can heal and have hope.”

Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day commended the province for coming up with funding so quickly after NAN declared its state of emergency, and called on the federal government to step up to the plate.

“Surely this raises the bar, and the feds must respond,” said Day.

“At the same time, we must never lose sight that these health crises will only end when we address the main determinants such as water, housing, education and economically sustainable communities.”

There’s a long history behind the health and social issues faced by First Nations, added Day.

“If we don’t deal with the legacy of the Indian Act and the residential school system, this funding is only going to be reactionary in nature,” he said.

“It’s only going to be throwing good money after bad, so I think that we really need to have a discussion as to what the root causes are and how we actually deal with the foundation of the real problems here.”

The Ontario plan will increase physician services for 28 communities across the Sioux Lookout region in the north by up to 28 per cent, and establish up to 10 new or expanded primary care teams that will include traditional healing.

There will also be cultural competency training for front-line health-care providers and administrators who work with First Nations communities, more public health nurses and a dedicated medical officer of health.

The government says it will also increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables for about 47,400 indigenous children, and expand diabetes prevention and management in northern and remote communities.

“This is a more than $15-million investment in diabetes services over the next three years then $10 million more each and every year,” said Hoskins. “There will also be designated funding to expand and improve access to home and community care services for First Nations communities across the province.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/ontario-pledges-222-million-to-improve-first-nations-health-care/feed/0‘Communities like Attawapiskat need more than short-term fixes’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/communities-like-attawapiskat-need-more-than-short-term-fixes/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/communities-like-attawapiskat-need-more-than-short-term-fixes/#commentsTue, 19 Apr 2016 19:39:08 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=862091For the record: A statement from Carolyn Bennett and Charlie Angus after their visit to Attawapiskat

Minister of Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett, right, shows her support for Stephanie Hookimaw, left, who lost her daughter to suicide last year in Attawapiskat, Ont. (Nathan Denette, CP)

For the record, a statement from Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and Charlie Angus, Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay, following their visit to Attawapiskat First Nation:

“Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit the Attawapiskat First Nation to meet with community leaders, members and youth to listen to them first-hand about their challenges.

No community in Canada should ever be faced with the circumstances that led so many of their young people to lose hope. Unfortunately, we know that these stories are not isolated to Attawapiskat but are common among all too many Indigenous communities across this country.

Since Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency, federal officials from Health Canada and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada have been working together with provincial and First Nations partners to provide immediate support to the community.

To truly improve the wellness, change the socio-economic reality and bring hope to Indigenous communities, we must work in genuine partnership on the long-term investments in infrastructure, water and education that are needed, based on community-driven solutions.

During our visit, we heard from the youth about the importance of rebuilding their identity as proud Indigenous people. They have asked for a ‘youth centre’ where they can come together, and work with families, elders for cultural and wellness programming. Starting immediately we will begin to work with the community to plan and design such a space as well as put in place the ‘on the land’ programming that they have requested.

We also heard from the youth the importance of adequate housing and healing. Starting immediately, we will work with the community to plan for additional housing so that it will be possible to return the healing centre back to its original use as a place for all community members to seek wellness.

What was clear from our trip to Attawapiskat yesterday, is the importance of Indigenous youth voices being heard. This is why we are pleased to announce that, working in partnership, the Government of Canada will coordinate a special Indigenous youth delegation to visit Ottawa. This visit will provide an opportunity for youth from the communities of Mushkegowuk Tribal Council and Nishnawbe Aski Nation to engage in a dialogue with elected officials about the challenges they face in their communities.

We are also pleased that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to being a part of this dialogue. Senator Murray Sinclair has offered to assist us in co-hosting this delegation in Ottawa.

In addition, the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs will form a Voices of Indigenous Youth Council to facilitate the Minister hearing directly from Indigenous youth from across the country about their priorities and concerns. This council will include Métis, Inuit and First Nations youth representatives.

We know that as we move forward, communities like Attawapiskat need more than short-term fixes. The Chief and Council were clear that government departments and all jurisdictions need to work together on the medium and long term solutions in genuine partnership with First Nations. We have to work together to put the interests of our young people first and ensure their voices are heard.”

OTTAWA – The system used to deliver medical services to First Nations introduces unnecessary barriers to care and often prevents doctors from doing their jobs, an Ontario physician bluntly told a parliamentary committee on Thursday.

Dr. Michael Kirlew, a doctor based in Sioux Lookout, Ont., urged the federal government to take “drastic change” to save lives.

“The longer we wait, the more people will die,” Kirlew said.

“The more time that we wait, the more children will die. I appeal to you today, not as politicians, not as members of political parties … let’s return the humanity to this process. This process needs that humanity.”

Kirlew, who travels to communities near Sioux Lookout to provide care, said First Nations people living on reserve receive a standard of health care that is far inferior to what other people get.

“Not just a little inferior — far inferior,” he said.

“Imagine a young person that breaks their leg — they come into the clinic and their leg is on a virtual right angle and you do not have adequate supplies of the pain medication that they need and it takes nine and half hours for that medevac to come in and that entire time, because that supply of morphine is not there in sufficient qualities, you hear that person screaming the entire time. That is the reality.”

Aboriginal leaders also painted a picture of dire and deadly conditions on reserves during their testimony and pleaded for the government to reform the medical benefit system.

Health Canada’s non-insured health benefits program is a system that provides coverage for claims for a specified range of drugs, dental care, vision care, medical supplies and equipment, mental health counselling and medical transportation for eligible First Nations and Inuit.

First Nations leaders, including Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, also said the system as deeply flawed.

His organization, which represents northern Ontario communities, declared a public health emergency in February.

“It’s not based on the needs of our communities,” Fiddler said after the meeting.

“It is based on a formula that is almost 40 years old and this was confirmed by the auditor general of Canada last year.”

Yvonne Jones, the parliamentary secretary to Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, said the Liberal government is looking to reform the program.

“We know that there are significant issues around the non-insured health benefit program,” she said in an interview. “We also know there are significant issues around how the system governs itself … we have been reviewing those issues.”

Change has to happen, she added.

“If we are actually going to have a nation-to-nation process that is going to work in this country, then we need to make changes from the systemic problems that we’ve seen over and over in the past,” she said.

The committee hearing follows an emergency debate in the Commons earlier this week about the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat First Nation.

The debate was called at the request of NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus.

Canada didn’t arrive at a crisis by accident, Angus said during question period on Thursday, noting the government routinely denies access to medical services.

Health Minister Jane Philpott said 18 mental health workers have been sent to Attawapiskat to help with the crisis.

The community’s leaders declared a state of emergency on Saturday, citing 11 suicide attempts so far in the month of April and 28 recorded attempts in March.

On Monday, officials thwarted what they called a suicide pact by 13 young aboriginal people on the reserve, including a nine-year-old.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/drastic-change-needed-to-medical-services-for-first-nations/feed/0Police break up suicide pact of 13 young people in Attawapiskathttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/police-break-up-suicide-pact-of-13-young-people-in-attawapiskat/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/police-break-up-suicide-pact-of-13-young-people-in-attawapiskat/#respondTue, 12 Apr 2016 16:42:33 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=859021Half of the youths waited in jail for treatment after local hospital was too overwhelmed to evaluate them.

]]>ATTAWAPISKAT, Ont. – An aboriginal official in northern Ontario says a nine-year-old child and 12 other youths were overheard making a suicide pact Monday on a remote First Nation mired in a suicide crisis.

Anna Betty Achneepineskum of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation says police brought the youths to the local hospital in Attawapiskat for an evaluation, but the hospital was too overwhelmed to see all of them at once and about half of them waited in jail for treatment.

Achneepineskum says the entire community in the James Bay region is so overwhelmed by the rash of suicide attempts that three of the four health-care workers have been sent to Thunder Bay for counselling and rest.

The Attawapiskat chief and eight councillors declared a state of emergency Saturday evening, citing the community’s 11 suicide attempts so far in the month of April and 28 recorded attempts in March.

Achneepineskum says some of the young people have been released back to their parents, while others are being treated for a variety of mental health issues.

She says a group from Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political organization that represents 49 First Nations communities including Attawapiskat, made plans a month ago to come into the community to talk about the suicide crisis.

“There are so many things that are needed here,” Achneepineskum said. “So many things.

On Jan. 28, 2000, two police officers drove Darrell Night five kilometres outside of Saskatoon and abandoned him in -22° C weather with just a T-shirt and jean jacket on his back. The incident was part of a series of “starlight tours,” a practice in which officers were said to have picked up drunk or rowdy people like Night, at night, and dropped them off in the dead of winter.

At least three Indigenous people in Saskatoon are suspected to have died this way, beginning with 17-year-old Neil Stonechild in 1990.

Although Night survived, he moved to British Columbia and has never returned. “In Saskatoon I found it very hard to recover from and move on from what they did to me that January night,” he says, typing his message to his sister because he still has trouble hearing and communicating due to trauma from the incident. (He is now 49). “I have never received an apology from the police for what was done to me.”

Two officers went to prison for eight months for Night’s incident. His case eventually led to an inquiry in 2003 into Stonechild’s death that made international news. Two officers were fired for Stonechild’s death, and the police chief apologized to Stonechild’s mother.

Yet, in 2016, there appears to have been an effort to erase this ugly, very prominent chapter from the police force’s history. Last Wednesday, an 18-year-old student named Addison Herman discovered that information about the tours was deleted from the Saskatoon Police Commission’s Wikipedia page, and the IP address of the computer that executed the change was registered with the Commission itself. “It was a pretty bold move on their part,” says Herman. The police admit that someone using a police computer did something to the Wikipedia entry but haven’t specified anything further.

Racism in Saskatchewan’s justice system remains a topic of intense scrutiny. As Maclean’s reported in a February cover story, Indigenous students in Saskatchewan are more likely to be stopped by police (whether or not they were engaged in or close to an illegal activity) than non-Indigenous students, and Indigenous people receive harsher sentences than non-Indigenous people in Saskatchewan.

Priscilla Settee, a professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatoon who works with exiting Aboriginal gang members, says the problems they face are endless. “What aren’t the problems?” she says, referring to poverty on reserves, lasting trauma from residential schools, and, in the justice system, stark jail conditions with recently privatized food services, leading inmates to start hunger strikes. “People are literally stockpiled into a jail cell together,” she says.

Saskatoon declared a year of reconciliation last June, as did Winnipeg this January. “We’ve tried very hard to take the TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Commission report] to heart,” says Richard Brown, spokesperson for Saskatoon Mayor Don Atchison. The commitments include “Aboriginal cultural awareness” training for all government employees, including police officers. The mayor was “very disappointed” to hear about the Wikipedia deletion. “As soon as something like this happens,” says Brown, “you have to hit the reset button and say, ‘What more do we need to do?’ ”

Robert Henry, a lecturer of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan, says the city needs to ensure the training isn’t merely cultural education, but rather what he calls “anti-oppressive training” that challenges people’s own prejudices. “They’ll say it’s ‘anti-racist week,’ but really it’s having a multicultural day,” says Henry. “If you see two Aboriginal [people] fighting, they’re ‘criminals being criminals.’ On the other side, if you see two [white] boys playing, they’re ‘boys being boys.’ ”

When the two starlight-tour guides were sentenced to eight months in prison for Night’s unlawful confinement, the maximum sentence was 10 years, and no officers were criminally charged for the deaths of the other victims. By comparison, an Indigenous man in Saskatoon was sentenced to four months in January 2016 for falsely reporting a starlight tour.

The RCMP have admitted that racism exists in the justice system. Last year, Commissioner Bob Paulson told the Assembly of First Nations, “I understand there are racists in my police force. I don’t want them to be in my police force.” Yet, in response, the Saskatoon police denied the practice of “carding” (performing street checks on a targeted demographic, often Aboriginal people) or racism influencing police behaviour.

“To deny it is just outrageous,” says Settee, who is Cree. “If I go into a store, I’m followed around.”

However, the police say they are making an effort. The department began a “peacekeeper cadets” program in 2014, which engages officers with 28 Indigenous elementary school students to encourage structure, discipline and encouragement to play sports and stay in school. The police chief meets with First Nations elders periodically and has awarded them a police badge, while they have presented him with the honour of an eagle staff. “We’ve done a lot to repair our reputation and will continue to do so,” says Kelsey Fraser, spokesperson for the Saskatoon Police Commission.

Ever since Night’s starlight tour, his entire family has been living on a reserve outside the city. Although his mother, Rosa Desjarlais, says Saskatoon is her home, she won’t return. “I didn’t think anybody could be that cold-blooded,” she says. “I don’t trust the cops, period. I would never go to them if I was desperately in need because they would never, never take my word for it.” Night says he’ll keep away from the province. “I like the mountains. I find it more peaceful here,” he says, typing the message to his sister. The past abuse, so easily erased from one corner of the Internet, plagues Night every time he tries to hear, speak or sleep.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/new-light-on-saskatoons-starlight-tours/feed/1My friend Kinew Jameshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/my-friend-kinew-james/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/my-friend-kinew-james/#commentsFri, 08 Apr 2016 11:53:14 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=856637This month, an inquest into the death of Kinew James will take place in Regina. A prisonmate remembers.

Kinew James was 35 when she died three years ago in a Saskatoon correctional facility, just a few months shy of being released. She had been incarcerated for half her life—from the age of 18 onwards. In Maclean’s Feb. 29 cover story, “You’ll never get out,” about Canada’s sky-high Indigenous incarceration rates, James’s story was featured as a prime example of the indignities and horrors of a system that seems incapable of dealing with traumatized, mentally ill inmates. Later this month, James’s death will be the subject of a public inquiry in Regina.

James was initially sentenced to six years, for arson and manslaughter, but inside, her mental health declined. She lashed out, repeatedly trying to harm and kill herself, and her sentence ballooned. Despite a host of mental health diagnoses, six of James’s 15 years in prison were spent in isolation—once for almost two years straight.

On the night of Jan. 20, 2013, James was heard moaning and calling for help, and repeatedly pressed the distress button in her cell. According to one report, corrections officers responded by muting the call button. When help did come, James was unresponsive; she was later declared dead from heart failure.

Maclean’s recently received the following letter from Nicole Kish, an inmate who served time with James at the Grand Valley Institute for Women, in Kitchener, Ont. (James was moved from Grand Valley after speaking out about guards she said were smuggling in goods in exchange for sexual favours.) Kish is currently serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, a crime she maintains she did not commit. She was convicted of the 2007 murder of Ross Hammond, who was attacked by a group of Toronto youth, and fatally stabbed. Kish was 21 at the time. – Nancy MacDonald

Nicole Kish.

You recently published an article about systemic discrimination against Indigenous people in Canada. The article touched my heart and the hearts of many of the women at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, where I am imprisoned. The words resonated with us as truths we are not allowed to understand. When I read the comparison of prisons to “new residential schools,” I felt validated. We make this comparison inside all the time. We feel deeply concerned with many of the current practices in Canadian judicial and prison systems. We know they represent horrors because we experience those horrors.

We are not allowed to make these comparisons, however, because of the moral legitimacy upon which imprisonment is based. Because people are sent to prisons for breaking laws, there is an enormous barrier surrounding open dialogue about abuses in this system. Yet, it doesn’t take much interacting with the system to learn that it is much less about a person being bad or good that sends them to one of these places, but more about how much money they have or what colour their skin is.

I did a lot of time with Kinew. Almost two years. I watched her constantly struggle and collide with the system. I also cared for her very much. I talked to her often. She would confide in me. I sat with Kinew as she picked out the first [correspondence] course she was taking at Athabasca [University]. I remember how she came to me often about that course, as I take courses through the same school. Once, Kinew told me that she got a C or a D (I can’t remember which!) and even still, she shared her accomplishment with me with a sense of pride in her voice. Kinew was proud that she had completed the assignment at all. I was proud of her, too.

Taking schooling from the max unit is not an easy task for anyone. It was a philosophy course. When she finished, she donated her course books to the max library. She had a very sweet side to her. We got along very well. I have never had a hard time getting along with the most disruptive women in the system. It doesn’t take five minutes to see that a little bit of love and positive attention can save the lives of these abandoned and mistreated people. There are so many of them.

Kinew and I lived together on many occasions, though never for too long because Kinew never lived anywhere for too long before she had a period of segregation. This prison did not know what to do with Kinew, so they responded to her needs with experimental mixtures of medications, uses of force, by degrading her and by constantly segregating or moving her.

One time I was in a room with two guards who were organizing my property. They were having a conversation about Kinew in front of me. The guards, in some bizarre attempt to be friendly, repeatedly attempted to include me in their conversation. But I did not want to participate in what they were saying. They were talking about what a “piece of s–t Kinew was” and how they hoped that she wouldn’t get out of this system alive.

I was horrified. I had the feeling that Kinew wouldn’t get out of here alive, but when I said it, it was not because I wanted it to happen. I wondered how human beings could be so callous to one another, how the guards could not see the violence that they were enacting in their positions.

I was witnessing the dynamics and effects of imprisonment on First Nations people and people with mental illness from a maximum security unit, the units where the most harm in the Canadian prison system occur.

I have wondered, over the years, when harming people and abandoning them to prisons became okay. I wonder why so little is known about our prison system and I wonder when it stopped being about rehabilitation. It is such a cold and violent system, with intense potential for irreversible harm.

One time I left the unit for school. When I came back, we were locked down. Kinew had gotten into an argument with a guard and somehow flooded our pod. The max unit smelled intensely of dampness and chemicals. I lived in the pod across from Kinew at that point. The next weekend I went to my job as the max librarian in a small, multi-purpose programs room. Women from Kinew’s pod brought all the books that had been in the pod to me to dispose of. They had been wrecked from the amount of chemical spray that was used. We had just had them all donated from the community. Kinew was in segregation, where she often was.

When she was eventually released, she moved into my pod. This was how guards dealt with Kinew. Use force, segregate her, move her, repeat. I spent a lot of time in my cell but Kinew often called me out to try to give me presents or talk with me. She liked to talk about nature and getting out of jail. She wanted to connect with her traditional practices and she was working with me to learn how to open a website where she could sell crafts she made, once released. I liked to laugh with Kinew. And as “unstable, disruptive, violent and maladaptive” as guards would describe her, she was always kind and gentle to me. The formula was simple; I was kind to her. I looked at her like she was a human being. She was one.

Kinew was an intensely mistreated human being. The system had not one mechanism in place to actually help Kinew. I tried my best to nurture her positive potential—she had a lot. And certain employees here did try, too. I witnessed that. But the employees who actually care within this system feel like they have their hands tied, or feel that they will be ostracized by their co-workers for being “con-lovers” if they care too much.

I was compelled to write not to inform of systemic horrors in corrections, but because I felt an overwhelming urge to share who Kinew, the human being, was.

One of the things that Kinew liked to do the most was to give gifts. She associated giving gifts with being kind and with being connected to her culture, which she told me places a high value on gifting as a practice to demonstrate love and respect. Yet, like most positive social functions in prison, giving gifts of any sort, passing anything of any sort, even a book for another person to glance at, is a chargeable offence punishable by an internal disciplinary system. The new residential schools, indeed: what kind of institution institutes policies that attempt to break individuals’ cultural practices? Residential schools did. And prisons do.

So how did Kinew cope with the rule against sharing, against giving? She coped as she always did, by being herself, and then by feeling intense internal conflict and guilt for it. I saw it all the time with Kinew, in areas such as consuming the poor diet they supply us, with taking medications she did not want to, with reacting to the system. Kinew was one who felt intensely conflicted by having to do things she did not want to. She knew that eating the way we had to in max was killing her. I could see her struggle. But what was she to do? As the Maclean’s article mentions, even swearing in a conversation with peers can be used against us in prison, as I have repeatedly witnessed and experienced. But the guilt Kinew felt for being fundamentally at odds with the practices of this prison was most noticeable with gifts.

Kinew would knock on my cell door and call me out with a huge smile on her face. She would have her hands behind her back. I would know it was some kind of present. I always engaged. Sharing and caring are crimes that I am always willing to be guilty of. With a very specific production, routine or tradition, however we want to conceptualize it, Kinew would begin by telling me that she was looking at an object or carrying out an activity when she thought of me. Then she would tell me that she wanted me to have something of hers; it would mean a lot to her to give it to me. She would then show me the item, and I would gratefully accept and give Kinew a hug.

Sometimes it would be a pair of jeans or a piece of jewellery. Sometimes it would be something she had made herself or a piece of art she got in the mail. Either way, I would appreciate her effort and take her gift thankfully. Then I would place it carefully in my cell, where it wouldn’t be found if we were to be searched, and wait. Without fail, either one or two days later, there would be another knock on my door. It would be Kinew. She would apologize and ask for the item back. She would tell me she was very sorry, but that she did not think it was a good idea to be sharing, since we both would be charged. I would nod and tell her that I understood and then I would give her whatever it was that she had given me back.

Over the years, Kinew gave me a lot of presents that she took back. We never deviated from the giving process, though. I always accepted and returned, and she always came again with something else.

Kinew James taught me much about this system and of the resilient struggle of human beings to remain true to their values, even in the face of intense coercion.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/my-friend-kinew-james/feed/2Chief Isadore Day: ‘These children didn’t have to die’http://www.macleans.ca/politics/chief-isadore-day-these-children-didnt-have-to-die/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/chief-isadore-day-these-children-didnt-have-to-die/#respondThu, 07 Apr 2016 21:00:34 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=857451A refugee in this country has more access to services than First Nations, says Day

Isadore Day Wiindawtegowinini is the regional chief of Ontario for the Assembly of First Nations, whose jurisdiction includes 133 communities across the province. Among them is Pikangikum, a remote reserve in the northwestern wilderness. It is home to more than 2,000 Anishinaabe peoples, but as of last week, there were nine fewer: a baby, a toddler, a preschooler and their parents, maternal grandparents, and an uncle and his girlfriend were all killed in a house fire on March 29. There is no running water in Pikangikum with which to extinguish a blaze, and the nearest fire truck didn’t arrive in time. For Day, who challenged the federal parties during the last election to end boil-water advisories in First Nations communities within five years, the tragedy in Pikangikum amplifies his determination to improve infrastructure and social services for Indigenous populations across the country. As he recently told Maclean’s, this “Canadian crisis” is getting harder to ignore every day.

Q: How did you first learn about what happened in Pikangikum?

A: I was notified by our northern advisories and folks in government … even before they knew how many people had perished in the fire. I heard early in the morning.

What was your immediate thought?

My immediate reaction obviously was sadness and horror. But I also felt frustrated about the typical and predictable and unfortunate scenario of loss in our community as a result of not having the proper infrastructure. That’s the big issue here. This clearly is a preventable situation.

What have you heard about the community since the fire?

I called later on the following day, but I wasn’t able to talk to the chief because he was very tired. When this thing happened, all night, it really drained the energy out of the community. When I spoke with Mr. Kyle Peters [the community liaison], he indicated that the community was obviously in a state of shock. He also spoke about the close-knit nature of the community, that they would find the strength to make it through.

Do you have a sense of what effort was made to try and stop the fire?

I can only speak in generalities because much of this is part of an investigation. There was a fire-cessation attempt made, however the fire truck from [the neighbouring town] just was not fast enough. It was a situation where they didn’t have the means to save lives. They had no running water in the home. They don’t have running water in over 90 per cent of the homes. There’s no fire hydrant outside. Whatever efforts they made were futile. Basically, the community members had no choice but to watch the fire just burn.

There’s been analysis about how this happened. Lack of access to water is a big part.

There’s a number of things. I don’t know at this point if it was a wood fire, I’m assuming that heating the home was obviously related to this issue. So we have to question, were these substandard conditions? Were there codes in place? Did they have the proper tools to ensure that fire prevention would prevail? There’s the overcrowding issue—nine people living in a house. And then, you have the fact that there’s no running water in the house, no fire hydrants outside, and overall just poor infrastructure.

Is what happened in Pikangikum unique, or are the circumstances that led up to it?

This happens in so many First Nations communities. When there’s a loss of life in any First Nations community via housefire, it’s often out of sight, out of mind. The reason why Pikangikum got such attention is because the leadership are stepping out and giving the rest of Canadians a really good view of what’s happening in First Nations communities in the remote north.

How many fires have happened, how many lives have been lost in this way?

The statistic out there that’s being used right now, it comes from a 2012 study that says First Nations are 10 times more likely to die in a house fire than mainstream Canada.

Pikangikum has been in the news, but so has Kashechewan First Nation. Images circulated online of babies and children with terrible skin rashes. The community has concerns about contaminated water; authorities have said the problem is overcrowding and sanitation. What’s your understanding?

It’s poverty. The reality is that First Nations in the remote north are not part of 21st-century Canada. Every refugee [who] comes to this country has far more access to health care, clean water, food security, infrastructure, housing, while First Nations communities in the north are still living in Third World conditions.

You called a state of emergency in late February. Why, and what has been the response?

There were alarming statistics about increased numbers of communicable disease. There were two kids who died of strep throat infection. We’ve got increased number of suicides, and a very scary changing demographic—more seniors committing suicide. There’s the two 10-year-old children who took their own lives in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory within this past year. The state of emergency speaks to very specific issues, but this is an overall Canadian crisis. I have to be clear about that. This is why you’re seeing First Nations leaders saying we need to start a new dialogue. Let’s get all-weather roads in place. Let’s upgrade nursing stations to actual health centres. How do we even fathom that this will uphold the human right to health for First Nations in the north? There’s a number of human rights violations that are occurring at the hands of government ignoring reality.

The latest federal budget earmarked billions of dollars toward what [the government] called “transformative change” in Indigenous populations. What was your reaction, not only to the amount of money devoted but to the way in which it’s being directed?

I have to speak to the initial campaign promises made by the Trudeau government … on ending boil-water advisories in five years. That’s the No. 1 issue. That’s actually one of the more promising pieces of the budget, where the Trudeau government realized it needed to follow through on that, and it actually is beginning to do that work. But I’ll tell you, it can’t happen fast enough. In our [recent] meeting with federal Health Minister Jane Philpott and provincial Health Minister Eric Hoskins in Toronto, we were very clear that the sequence of investment hitting the ground is problematic to meeting the needs of First Nations, and actually saving lives, as we’ve seen in Pikangikum.

Meaning it needs to happen faster?

It needs to happen faster. We need to sit down and look at the most prevalent ways [in which] people are either succumbing to chronic disease or emergency and we need to troubleshoot where and how things are not working, and how fast-tracking those investments to the community right away might help.

On the matter of boil-water advisories, has there been any movement on the frontlines?

We are having trilateral discussions on the source protection and safety side, the standards side, and with the federal government we’re talking about capital investments. We’re prompting the government and the government is saying, “We’re moving as fast we can.”

So are you feeling optimistic at this point about the boil-water target?

I’m feeling determined. I’m feeling anxiety. And I’m also feeling a sense of relief. That’s only going to become more sustained relief once changes are made to the way that government gets those investments down and action is undertaken.

In January, the Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federal government has been discriminating against First Nations by underfunding child welfare services on reserves. One of the criticisms about the federal budget has been that not enough money was directed toward Indigenous children. Did you have thoughts on that?

As First Nations, we very much appreciate the work of Cindy Blackstock, [executive director of the First Nation Child and Family Caring Society, who first launched the human rights complaint]. She took the issue of child poverty and investment in child welfare and she raised that to a level of social justice that nobody could deny. And if the government isn’t working with those [tribunal] recommendations, then the government is flat-out wrong.

How do Pikangikum and Kashechewan fit into the context of that historic ruling?

The Liberal government is setting a dangerous tone. [It needs] to re-examine the overall budget, policies around engagement, inclusion, and they need to line up the principles of nation-to-nation, the commitment on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Human Rights Tribunal ruling. If they cannot remain consistent with those principles and values, then perhaps they’re also doing an injustice to Canadians because this is a national issue.

You have children. For you, who is in the midst of this injustice day-to-day, how do you process this as a parent?

It goes back to your first question [about] how did I feel, what was my response [to Pikangikum]. I was sent a picture of the three babies who perished in that fire. Looking into their eyes, you could see these little spirits were vibrant, colourful, full of life. To see that snatched away, it just deepens a sense of despair and frustration. But I’m actually more determined than ever. These children didn’t have to die. This government has the power to make decisions and investments to prevent these things, and bring the vibrancy of progress to the communities in a spirited partnership. As a parent, even without me being the chief, I have to have discussions with people on the street, I have to let Canadians know, friends, acquaintances, that there’s a problem in the country right now. Canada will never, ever achieve what it aspires as a strong nation until it actually corrects the systemic and institutional racism against Indigenous people.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/chief-isadore-day-these-children-didnt-have-to-die/feed/0Fire on First Nation community in northern Ont. kills 9 peoplehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/fire-on-first-nation-community-in-northern-ont-kills-9-people/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/fire-on-first-nation-community-in-northern-ont-kills-9-people/#respondWed, 30 Mar 2016 18:16:04 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=854149MP Robert Nault says he was told that nine are dead—all related, including three kids—in the Pikangikum First Nation blaze

PIKANGIKUM, Ont. — Sources in a remote northern Ontario First Nations community say three generations of one family perished in a house fire that is reigniting calls for change on Canada’s reserves.

A resident of the Pikangikum First Nation who did not want to be identified said nine people died in the blaze that destroyed a family home late Tuesday.

The source identified the victims as Dean and Annette Strang, their son Gilbert, their daughter Faith, Faith’s three children and two common-law partners.

The source said all three children were under the age of five.

Ontario Provincial Police Const. Diana Cole said the fire broke out late Tuesday in the remote community near the Manitoba-Ontario boundary that has been plagued by suicides.

The cause of the fire is under investigation and police remain on the scene, Cole said.

Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation which represents First Nations in northern Ontario, said he spoke Wednesday with Pikangikum Chief Dean Owen, who sounded exhausted.

“The shock of losing so many people in one tragic event is overwhelming,” said Fiddler. “There’s a tremendous loss and overwhelming grief that all of us are feeling.”

Fiddler described Pikangikum as “ground zero” when it comes to infrastructure requirements such as housing, access to clean drinking water or the capacity to fight fires.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his condolences to the community and said his government will work to improve conditions for First Nations people.

“We continue to be engaged with provincial and indigenous leadership on how to build better infrastructure, how to secure the future for indigenous youth and their communities,” he said during a visit to Edmonton.

“This is not just about the moral, right thing to do. It’s about investing in our shared future in this country.”

Kyle Peters, the First Nation’s education director, described the mood in the community as “shock and extremely sad. It’s probably one of the most difficult times.”

“I’m trying to set up travel for immediate family affected by the loss. Some as far as Alberta, some as far as London, Ont., and even Moosonee, I believe,” Peter said.

Crisis teams are also being dispatched from neighbouring communities, he added.

Joseph Magnet, a constitutional law professor at the University of Ottawa who has worked with the First Nation in the past, said he has been in all the houses in the community of about 2,100.

Local MP Robert Nault said discussions were ongoing about sending in support to help deal with “the whole issue of mourning.”

“It affects everyone in the community whenever there’s a tragedy like this or a suicide,” he said. “This is a community that’s had a history of suicides … and tragic situations, so this community has been in a constant crisis for a number of years.”

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne took to Twitter to offer her condolences to the community.

“My thoughts are with the First Nations community of #Pikangikum and those who lost loved ones in last night’s devastating house fire,” Wynne tweeted.

Nault said he was to meet Thursday with two health ministers to discuss what he called “the crisis in the North.”

“Not specifically about this incident, but obviously to talk about mental health, health-care delivery, the suicides,” he said. “Pikangikum has the largest suicide rate of any community in the western world … I think over 400 in the last couple of decades.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/fire-on-first-nation-community-in-northern-ont-kills-9-people/feed/0Liberals criticized for underfunding of First Nations child welfarehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/liberals-criticized-for-underfunding-of-first-nations-child-welfare/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/liberals-criticized-for-underfunding-of-first-nations-child-welfare/#commentsThu, 24 Mar 2016 02:12:00 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=851833Critic assails the government for failing to spend the needed $200 million on indigenous child welfare services this year

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde looks on as First Nations Child and Family Caring Society Caring Society Executive Director Cindy Blackstock speaks about the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal regarding discrimination against First Nations children in care during a news conference in Ottawa, Tuesday, January 26, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA – The federal government is determined to overhaul the First Nations child welfare system, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett says – even as critics focused on the issue say the budget fell well short of what’s needed.

It’s also necessary to increase capacity so child welfare services can be properly delivered and controlled by First Nations themselves, Bennett said Wednesday in a post-budget interview with The Canadian Press.

“We think the $635 million (over five years for child and family services) that we are committing to in this budget is significant,” Bennett said.

“We are very interested in working together to have less children in foster care, get children back to their communities as we’ve heard time and time again in the pre-inquiry hearings on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.”

Advocate Cindy Blackstock has a much different assessment of the government’s level of funding, which includes an initial outlay of $71 million in 2016-17.

As president of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, Blackstock spent nearly a decade fighting the federal government over what has long been characterized as the perpetual underfunding of reserve care.

On Tuesday, despite a multibillion-dollar federal budget windfall for Aboriginal Peoples, including First Nations education, infrastructure and social housing, Blackstock assailed the government for failing to spend the needed $200 million on indigenous child welfare services this year.

During their lengthy legal battle, Blackstock’s society and the Assembly of First Nations argued the government failed to provide First Nations children with the same level of welfare services that exist elsewhere, contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

At the end of January, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in their favour and the government opted not to appeal the judgment.

However, $71 million in the first year does not meet the legal obligation outlined by the tribunal, Blackstock said, acknowledging that her disappointment with the budget has seemed out of sync with other First Nations stakeholders.

“When we use these conversations about giving credit for first steps, it sometimes distracts away from what is actually happening to the kids,” Blackstock said.

“We sometimes don’t acknowledge that these poor little kids are still being treated that they are worth less … I don’t think that’s okay … I can’t be grateful for a child receiving less because of their race under any circumstance.”

The tribunal could end up ordering the government to provide additional funding, she added.

AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde also urged the government to ensure the money flows for child welfare.

“We’ve got to take what is there now and get it out as soon as possible,” Bellegarde told a news conference Wednesday.

The system itself needs to be redesigned, he acknowledged.

“It is not just about the resources,” Bellegarde said. “That’s one piece, a very key piece. First Nations controlled jurisdiction over child and family services, we say _ not only on-reserve, but as well as off-reserve.”

Funding for First Nations issues was a central theme of the Liberal’s government’s first budget, featuring $8.4 billion in spending commitments over multiple years for education, water, housing and other services.

Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, said that money should be considered a deposit on the actual amount owed.

MKO is an organization representing First Nations in northern Manitoba.

“To look at it, it seems like an impressive number but when you break it down to what the needs are and also what is owed in terms of resources and the land that was taken from our people, it doesn’t really compare,” North Wilson said. “It’s a good start.”

Canadians need to be mindful of a history of underfunding, she added, citing the two per cent funding cap that was put in place in the late 1990s for reserve programs and services.

The Liberals have committed to removing that cap as part of their effort to establish a new fiscal relationship with First Nations.

]]>SASKATOON – Leaders of three Saskatchewan First Nations say they are declaring a health crisis, citing a three-year spike in deaths due to violence, addictions and health issues.

The Keeseekoose, Cote and Key First Nations hope their declaration will prompt the Sunrise Health Region and the federal and provincial governments to meet with the Saulteaux Pelly Agency Chiefs Health Alliance to discuss a plan of action.

Former Keeseekoose chief Ted Quewezance, now a senator with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, says lack of access to quality health care is the primary cause of the deaths.

He says philosophical approaches such as the harm-reduction strategy – which aims to help drug-users manage their addictions in a safer way – have failed.

Members of the alliance want the federal government and health region to review the opening of a methadone clinic in Kamsack, Sask.

They point to a Health Canada report that found addiction issues escalated following the opening of the clinic.

“The federal and provincial governments have become pushers of drugs as they fund narcotics and opioids under the government drug plan,” says Quewezance.

The 63-year-old estimates he has been to more than 400 funerals.

“An average Canadian citizen goes to seven to 10 funerals a year and my chiefs have been to over 50 and 60 funerals in the last year and a half,” Quewezance told a news conference Monday.

“Could you imagine going to a funeral every week?”

Cote First Nation had four deaths on Feb. 27. Chief Norman Whitehawk says the community is in a “constant state of grieving.”

Quewezance says there are two funeral homes in Kamsack but the community is still struggling to get a second nurse they asked for during 27 months of negotiations with governments.

They want more front-line doctors and nurses on reserves who can assess, diagnose, resuscitate and stabilize patients for transportation.

]]>TORONTO — Ontario will push for a national agreement at this week’s First Ministers’ meeting in Vancouver to ensure First Nations communities have safe, clean drinking water, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Tuesday.

There are more than 150 boil water advisories or do not consume advisories in about 112 First Nations communities across Canada, some more than 15 years old.

“It’s unacceptable to me that we have boil water orders in First Nations communities in Ontario, and that is the case across the country,” said Wynne.

“If we don’t find a way for the federal government, the provincial government and indigenous leadership to work together better on something as fundamental as provision of clean water, then I think that we should be very ashamed of ourselves.”

First Nations’ leaders from northern Ontario declared a public-health emergency last week, asking for a detailed intervention plan to ensure communities have access to safe, clean drinking water. A dire shortage of basic medical supplies and an epidemic of suicides among young people were other reasons for issuing their plea for help.

Wynne said she’ll raise the drinking water issue when she meets Wednesday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, provincial and territorial premiers and First Nations, Inuit and Metis leaders in Vancouver.

Indigenous leaders will be consulted for their input on Canada’s approach to climate change, but Wynne said she knows they have other pressing issues to deal with.

“Climate change is an immediate issue, but there are other immediate issues that I know there will be a conversation about, things like clean water and how do we work together to make sure that we have a strategy for providing clean water across all of the country,” she said. “That’s one of the issues that I’ll certainly be pushing.”

David Zimmer, Ontario’s minister of aboriginal affairs, said the previous federal government virtually refused to work with the province on First Nations issues, and only agreed last year to co-operate with Ontario on drinking water for reserves.

“The new federal government has a renewed interest in this,” said Zimmer. “It’s inexcusable that some of these boil water advisories have been there 10 year or 15 years. There’s even one that’s almost 20 years old.”

Zimmer called it “crazy” to have to fly in large bottles of water for remote First Nations communities that used to be able to literally drink untreated water from nearby lakes and rivers, especially when Ontario has over 20 per cent of the world’s supply of fresh water.

New water treatment technology that’s easier to use may be a key in resolving the long-standing problem with safe drinking water, added Zimmer.

“The federal government put in water treatment plants 15 or 20 years ago, but it was a complicated technology, difficult to operate and need a couple of people,” he said.

“We’re hoping to implement that newer technology, which is more reliable and simpler to operate and in terms of training people to operate it.”

Ontario’s opposition Progressive Conservatives said the province’s Liberal government has been in power for 13 years, and there have been boil water advisories in First Nations communities for every one of those years.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/wynne-promises-to-push-first-nations-drinking-water-issue/feed/1‘We are in a state of shock:’ First Nations declare health emergencyhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/we-are-in-a-state-of-shock-first-nations-declare-health-emergency/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/we-are-in-a-state-of-shock-first-nations-declare-health-emergency/#commentsWed, 24 Feb 2016 18:46:07 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=838595First Nations leaders cite a dire shortage of basic medical supplies and an epidemic of suicides among young people

]]>TORONTO – First Nations leaders from northern Ontario declared a public-health emergency on Thursday related to what they called a dire shortage of basic medical supplies and an epidemic of suicides among young people.

The declaration — essentially a desperate plea for help — calls for urgent action from the federal and provincial governments to address a crisis they said has resulted in needless suffering and deaths.

“We are in a state of shock,” Grand Chief Jonathan Solomon of the Mushkegowuk Council said wiping away tears. “When is enough? It is sad. Waiting is not an option any more. We have to do something.”

The declaration calls on governments to respond within 90 days by, among other things, meeting with First Nation leaders and coming up with a detailed intervention plan that includes ensuring communities have access to safe, clean drinking water.

At a news conference at a downtown hotel, the leaders screened a video of Norman Shewaybick, whose wife Laura died last fall shortly after going into respiratory distress in their remote community in Webequie. As the desperate husband held her hand, the nursing station in the community ran out of the oxygen that might have saved her life.

“We hear stories like this almost on a daily basis,” said Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which has 35,000 members in 49 communities across the northern Ontario.

“It’s not like the government doesn’t know these things.”

Fiddler cited the cases of two four-year-olds who died of rheumatic fever caused by strep throat in 2014, and suicides by children as young as 10.

Governments, the leaders said, have failed to act on numerous reports about the deficiencies in health-care services, including one from the auditor general last year, and another aboriginal leaders delivered in January on the rash of suicides, the latest just last week in Moose Factory.

First Nations communities, many still dealing with the brutal after-effects of the residential school system, are rife with diseases such as hepatitis C and diabetes that should have been prevented or better treated, are short on medical supplies and basic diagnostic equipment, and have a serious substance-abuse problem, the leaders said.

What’s clear, they said, is that federal and provincial health policies have failed them, resulting in a substandard level of health care mainstream Canada would never tolerate.

Day said First Nations are hoping the new Liberal government in Ottawa will finally respond after years of seeing their pleas for help fall on deaf political ears.

“We have recently come out of a decade of darkness under the previous Harper government,” he said.

“As Canada and the provinces and territories look at a new health accord, they must understand… the cost of doing nothing over the last decade has had a drastic impact on the people of the North.”

There was no immediate response from the federal government to the emergency declaration.

However, Ontario’s aboriginal affairs minister, David Zimmer, said he hoped to talk to provincial and federal health ministers as well as to Fiddler about what he called the serious problems.

“Health issues for First Nations, especially in the remote communities, are always a challenge and, in cases, are in fact emergencies,” Zimmer said. “It’s something that we all have to tackle. It’s everybody’s responsibility.”

]]>Lawyers behind a lawsuit over a long-simmering dispute concerning what two First Nations call federal mishandling of energy resources on their reserves say other bands are considering joining the legal action.

In a statement filed late Monday, the Onion Lake and Poundmaker Cree bands accused Indian Oil and Gas Canada of failing to promote and develop energy resources on their lands and of failing to protect those resources from being drained by wells adjacent to them.

Harvey Strosberg, one of two lawyers representing the bands, said he’s opened talks with other bands interested in joining.

“We want the court to make it into a class action,” said Strosberg.

“We’ve talked to at least another Five Nations and they are very supportive. Some of them are in the process of retaining us.”

Because aboriginal bands are not allowed to disburse reserve lands, energy companies seeking to develop the oil and gas beneath them must deal with Indian Oil and Gas Canada. That agency is responsible for promoting development, negotiating deals, issuing licences, collecting royalties and monitoring activity.

Because the bands can’t do the work themselves, the agency is obliged to look after First Nations interests, said Strosberg.

“The Indian nations can’t do anything. They have to pass this off to the federal government. (The government) said, ‘You can’t do it yourself … we’ll take of you.”’

Figures in the statement of claim _ which contains allegations not yet tested in court _ question that care.

The claim alleges there have been 41 wells drilled on Poundmaker lands with 10 producing. That compares with 242 wells _ with 86 producing _ immediately adjacent to the Saskatchewan reserve.

The situation is similar for Onion Lake, which straddles the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary, says the statement.

“The (agency) did not actively promote and solicit leasing opportunities to exploit the oil and gas rights on the designated reserve lands.”

As well, the statement of claim says oil and gas pools flow underground in response to pumping activity. It claims Ottawa didn’t protect resources under reserve lands from being drained by wells adjacent to them.

“If you have 100 wells pumping on the adjacent property and 10 wells pumping on the reserve, you’ll drain more than your share,” Strosberg said.

The statement says compensation measures such as pools or royalty payments are commonplace in other resource plays where different players exploit the same resource.

The statement also asks for a full audit of Indian Oil and Gas Canada’s handling of First Nation energy revenues.

It’s not the first time bands have criticized the agency.

In 2002, Alberta’s Stoney First Nation accused it of failing to collect all the royalties the band was owed and said similar problems existed for other bands.

Strosberg said he hopes the federal government will choose to negotiate a settlement.

“If you want to fight, we’ll fight, but if you want to talk, we’ll talk,” he said. “We prefer to talk.”

Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde also encouraged the government to settle.

“Based on our natural resource wealth, First Nations should be among the wealthiest in Canada, but federal mismanagement and neglect of its fiduciary duties has resulted in lost revenue for First Nations, perpetuating a cycle of poverty,” he said in a statement.

“I encourage the Crown to begin negotiations in good faith with all parties involved, to work towards a reconciliation that honours First Nations title and rights.”

Mayor Brian Bowman marks the one-year anniversary of Winnipeg’s designation as Canada’s most racist city. Bowman announced that 2016 would be a year of reconciliation for the city. (Photograph by Sam Karney)

Last January, one day after the publication of a Maclean’s cover story on racism in Winnipeg, Lenard Monkman headed to Meet Me at the Belltower, an anti-violence rally held weekly at the Selkirk Avenue belltower, in the heart of Winnipeg’s troubled North End. It was a first step on a journey that’s taken the 30-year-old from a dreary job in flooring to the forefront of a grassroots movement that is transforming the Manitoba capital.

“I went to the belltower because I felt I had something to say about racism in Winnipeg—about the urban Indigenous experience,” he recalls. “It was uncomfortable at first; but it was also about me trying to change my life around.”

In the months since, Monkman, a member of the Lake Manitoba First Nation, launched a program called “100 Basketballs,” to provide 100 North End children with a basketball, basketball shoes and basketball shorts; its popularity prompted the Manitoba government to announce the creation of a new, brightly lit North End basketball court, and Winnipeg Police Service Chief Devon Clunis to captain a team of officers for a hard-fought game against community youth, to drum up donations.

Monkman is also among the young editorial team that launched Red Rising, a vibrant, new magazine by and for Indigenous youth; the launch of its second issue this week will be celebrated by a free performance by Indigenous musicians Leonard Sumner and Ali Fontaine. And Monkman was part of the organizing committee behind a fall, grassroots summit on racism at the Forks, and the “13 Fires” conversation series, which aims to strengthen communication between Winnipeg communities. Broadly, “the work focuses on breaking down stereotypes and improving understanding,” says Monkman. “It’s that us-versus-them mentality that’s really broken down the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in this country.”

With his flooring days now behind him, Monkman is studying at the University of Winnipeg, with plans to earn an M.A. at the University of Victoria’s renowned Indigenous governance program. “Last year, I never thought I was going to be able to go to university,” he says. “This year I think writing a book may be possible some day.”

Monkman was among many in the city closely watching the mayor’s two-hour press conference at City Hall last Friday. It was called one year ago, to coincide with the anniversary of the Maclean’s article’s Jan. 22 publication. But rather than pat himself on the back for the difficult work of the past 12 months, Bowman—who promised in vain he wouldn’t get emotional as he did last year, when he broke down—instead announced a redoubling of efforts toward “building bridges, strengthening relationships and embracing diversity.”

Declaring 2016 the “Year of Reconciliation” for Winnipeg, he announced a host of new initiatives aimed at combatting racism, including mandatory training for all city staff on the impact of residential schools, a promise to visit every Winnipeg high school to address diversity, and a program to foster public engagement in reconciliation. It is a kind of commitment to the issue of racism never before seen by a civic leader in Winnipeg, and one that civic leaders say has propelled Winnipeg to the forefront of the issue in Canada, as other cities begin the tough work of reconciliation.

“On that day [a year ago], this community chose to come together to recognize the existence of racism, and that we needed to work together to better address it,” Bowman said. “On that day, we chose unity over division. We responded to the Maclean’s article with honesty and humility. We knew we could not, and cannot, mend the profound wrongs and injustices of generations and centuries in one year, with a single summit or press conference. But I remain committed to the journey.”

Photograph by John Woods

Numerous Indigenous speakers and community leaders at the press conference announced forthcoming projects, like St. John’s High School student Sylas Parenteau, who talked about an upcoming march for diversity by 3,000 Winnipeg School Division students, continuing the anti-racism work the division undertook in the last year. Far from a top-down effort, “we’ve been able to drive this conversation down to the individual level, where it really needs to occur,” Bowman said.

Bowman addressed a packed, second-floor foyer at City Hall. Seated with him were many of the same people who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him last year. Michael Champagne, of Aboriginal Youth Opportunities, and founder of Meet Me at the Belltower, led a smudge; a local imam led a prayer. Proceedings were briefly interrupted by a Somali mother who told media she hasn’t seen her children in the six years since they were allegedly taken by Winnipeg Child and Family Services (CFS). Rather than being promptly frogmarched out by security, she was embraced by Ojibwe elder Randi Gage, and promised an audience with Bowman; Clunis, the police chief, wrapped an arm around her husband’s shoulder. Justice Murray Sinclair, head of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission, addressed the controversy, acknowledging the “validity” of her concerns, which mirror those many Indigenous people feel toward CFS. “They are an example of what this day is all about—the sense of injustice so many feel about the way that they are treated by society, and their inability to be able to express themselves in a full way, to be able to achieve their ambitions in being part of this nation.”

There were critics of last year’s article in the room at City Hall, too; it remains deeply controversial in the city. But some, like radio host Charles Adler, who found the thrust of it “incredibly insulting,” admitted it ultimately “forced all of us to look into our souls,” and see the problem for what it was: “a human dignity issue,” threatening the future of the city. Instead of racism, Adler, who hosted Bowman’s press conference last week, believes Winnipeg will one day become known as “the capital of reconciliation.”

“At the very foundation of attacking racism there are two things we need to think about,” said Sinclair, a member of Bowman’s new Indigenous advisory circle: “What is it that our leaders are saying? And what is it that our leaders are doing? And to that, I say: Look around. Look at what our mayor has done. Look at the fact that our mayor has stood up, has embraced the ambition of trying to address it in a way that all people of this city are comfortable with who they are, are comfortable with a sense of their future, of who they can be in this society.”

More than anything, it’s the “tone and mindset” that’s changed in the last year, says Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. “There’s more friendliness, more people meeting each other’s eyes, taking the time to say hello, more speaking out [against racism],” says activist Althea Guiboche, founder of the charity Got Bannock?, who was featured in last year’s story; this month, she announced her candidacy for the provincial Liberals in the North End riding of Point Douglas in Manitoba’s spring election.

Champagne, who was also profiled in the story, believes people “began to have a much more blunt conversation about the racism we see every day. It felt like before, it was less okay. But after the article it was much more acceptable for people to bring it up, to name it and work collaboratively to create some kind of response.”

The next stage, according to Treaty Commissioner Jamie Wilson, a member of the mayor’s Indigenous advisory circle, involves quantifying progress: “It’s not just, ‘Here’s how much money we’ve spent’; it’s going to be looking at what difference has this made in our community,” then using those measurements to figure out where to go next.

For Monkman, who was criminally active as a youth, the process of reconciliation is real and tangible: “Last year I thought there was a wall built up between me and non-Indigenous people we’d never overcome. Like a lot of people, I’ve never gone outside that circle; all my friends have always been Indigenous. But it’s different now. I never realized how much people in the wider community wanted to see change. How ready people are for it.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/winnipeg-shows-us-how-to-fix-canadas-racism-problem/feed/0Why unexploded bombs are an expensive—and dangerous—problemhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-unexploded-bombs-are-an-expensive-and-dangerous-problem/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-unexploded-bombs-are-an-expensive-and-dangerous-problem/#respondMon, 04 Jan 2016 15:01:58 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=815971Inside one band’s struggle to clear its land of old military ordnance

A warning sign on the Goose Lake Range in Vernon B.C. , October 27, 2015. Many unexploded explosive ordnance are still on the range which is owned by the Okanagan Indian Band Reserve. (Photograph by Jason Franson)

A modest concrete war memorial sits outside the Okanagan Indian Band offices near Vernon, B.C., a reminder of heroism, loss and of a lingering threat that even today casts a dark shadow on the rugged beauty of their reserve lands. The names of band members who served in Canada’s conflicts are etched in black marble slabs. There are four Tronsons (Harry, James, Agnes and Edward); four Brewers (Art, Herbert, Riley and William); five Simpsons (Bert, Clarence, Ernest, Harvey and Tom). There are Steeles, Parkers and Harrises, and single representatives of other families—men like George McLean, a veteran of both the Boer War and First World War. The citation for McLean’s Distinguished Conduct Medal, earned for a daring solo grenade attack during the battle of Vimy Ridge, reads: “Single-handed he captured 19 prisoners, and later, when attacked by five more prisoners who attempted to reach a machine gun, he was able—although wounded—to dispose of them unaided, thus saving a large number of casualties.”

This is a tiny band. Even today there are just 2,000 members. Back then it was considerably smaller. Indians were exempt from conscription, denied as most were even the basic citizenship right of the vote until 1960, but it is said that every man in the band who was fit and available volunteered to serve. It is a point of pride here.

But the band continues to pay the price for another contribution—as do other bands across the country. Portions of reserve lands were appropriated as far back as a century ago by what is now the Department of National Defence (DND), for use as artillery and tank ranges, mortar fields and other live-fire training exercises. It’s doubtful members had much say in the matter. Such contracts were handled by white Indian agents who managed, or mismanaged, most band business dealings. Almost a century of military use has left some 2,800 hectares of Okanagan band land seeded with a lethal harvest of buried unexploded ordnance, known in military terms as UXOs. It has rendered prime development areas with rangeland vistas and spectacular views of the resort mecca of Okanagan Lake largely useless for anything but grazing lands for cattle and horses. Over the years, accidental explosions on DND training sites here, and elsewhere, have resulted in several civilian deaths and injuries.

Although the Army vacated its training facilities here by 1991, attempts at cleanups—including one under way this fall—have been sporadic at best, denying the band millions in potential development revenue as well as badly needed land for housing, says Chief Byron Louis. “Most of the land that we’re looking at that has high economic value is also these lands that have a lot of unexploded ordnance,” he says.

The band has contributed more than its share of wartime sacrifice, he says. A reminder of that sits beside the war memorial: the remains of a tank turret ripped apart by shell-fire, part of the targets used on a tank range on band lands near Madeline Lake. “We have a long history of a relationship with the Crown,” says the chief. “Our people have the belief that we’re allies.”

The bill for that relationship is long overdue, one that would reach into the billions, if DND were to make a concerted effort to cleanup its mess on First Nation lands, and hundreds of other UXO sites across Canada and off-shore. “It is important to understand that cleaning up unexploded ordnance is phenomenally expensive, even by environmental standards,” warns an analysis by retired Canadian Forces Maj. Jeff Lewis, a former engineering officer. “Today, UXOs are ‘flying under the radar,’ with relatively few news stories dedicated to them because they impact so few people,” Lewis writes in a 2010 issue of the Canadian Military Journal. “However, as the population base sprawls outwards from our cities, pressure will build to allow residential property development on former military property.”

Okanagan Indian Band members, from left, Joseph Jack, Chief Byron Louis, Bruce Weaver, Councillor Russell Williams and UXO Liaison Don Louis look over a hole where the search for an unexploded explosive ordnance has taken place on the Goose Lake range, in Vernon B.C. , October 27, 2015. (Photograph by Jason Frason)

The search for unexploded munitions is slow, tedious, cautious work, with occasional moments of high drama. A 120-hectare section of a former mortar range on Okanagan band land has been scanned by high-intensity metal detection equipment, yielding some 10,000 hits, tracked by GPS coordinates and marked with blue flags. Each of those has to be carefully excavated by a team led by Wolfgang Kaske, an ex-German army bomb-disposal technician, and a veteran project manager for Ottawa-based Notra, which holds a $500,000 explosives-management contract for this preliminary clearance effort.

This late fall day proceeds more cautiously than usual. Kaske has received last-minute orders from his skittish military minders in Ottawa not to discuss the clearance operation after they learned a Maclean’s writer and photographer were to tour the site. The chief and band staff are not amused at DND’s presumptuousness. “This is your land, we are visitors here and we respect that,” says an apologetic Kaske, who turns over the tour to Don Louis, a band member who acts as a liaison between DND and the band. Louis travelled south last year for a rigorous month-long UXO technician course under the auspices of Texas A&M University. Three other band members returned this fall from the DND-financed course. The plan is to eventually train 10 band UXO technicians in hopes of winning federal contracts to clear their own land­—a project so daunting it would likely see them all through to retirement.

The template for band-run bomb disposal exists at the Tsuu T’ina First Nation outside Calgary. Members there have waged pitched battles with DND for decades over the UXO cleanup of the former Sarcee Training Area, the Harvey Barracks and other sites. Tsuu T’ina launched its first lawsuit against the federal government in 1982, and litigation continues to this day. By 2004 alone some $73 million had been spent on partial remediation efforts. One positive legacy was the band’s creation, in the mid-1980s, of the Wolf’s Flat Ordnance Disposal Corp. to take charge of its UXO cleanup. It is now a major band employer with an international reputation. The Okanagan band has created a similar corporation, hoping, as it builds capacity, to administer its own remediation efforts. After a safety briefing that includes printed instructions for the most expeditious route to the nearest hospital, a stop-work order is radioed to the team working a distant hillside. The observers pile into vehicles and bounce up the hill, dodging fresh-dug holes, blue flags and random cow paddies.

The yield in the early stages of this metal harvest has been, depending on one’s point of view, disappointing. Crews have unearthed no live explosives, just wire, horseshoes and the fins and fuses of spent mortar rounds. Doug Louis shrugs. One never knows what the next hole will yield. “It could be like Madeline Lake,” he says of a dig last year at the tank range, “where we pulled out 10,000 pounds in two acres.” There, a collection of live shells was buried under a couple of tonnes of sand and detonated on site. It made for an impressive display.

The band’s newly minted UXO techs working with Kaske’s experienced crew set down their shovels for a chat. Suzanne Lewis, 53, was thinking of the future when she volunteered to take the course. “I do have three children and two grandchildren. I’d like to make sure they’re in a safe environment,” she says. Her father used to range cattle near Madeline Lake. She remembers as a girl of six or seven picking up what she now knows to be a live mortar. “I walked it to my Dad and asked, what is this? He said, ‘Put it down carefully.’ Why, Dad, what is it? He said again, ‘Put it down, carefully . . . walk backward.’”

Leo Louis, a 52-year-old father of three school-age children, says he hopes his kids will eventually benefit from the band’s clearance efforts. He avoided any found munitions as a child, something that was drilled into him by his father. He’s even more cautious today in his new role as “a bomb guy,” as his kids proudly call him. “You’ve got to know your s–t,” he says. “The thing of it is, our first-aid bag is this big,” he says, indicating the size of a small shoebox. “The reason is there’s nothing going to be left of you if a three-inch mortar goes off.”

Stories abound of band members in earlier days handling abandoned munitions and those heaved up by frost or unearthed by ploughs or erosion. Ranchers would cart them to a rock pile, or toss them to their fence line, or just over their fence line, only to have their neighbours return the favour.

Elder Madeline Gregoire, 76, remembers in her early years finding a live, 60-cm shell partially buried on the site of the Goose Lake range. “It didn’t go off when it went into the ground, so we took it to the army camp,” she recalls. “Boy, they took that bomb and they put it somewhere [safe], because they were really nervous.” They packed it into a truck and hauled it away for detonation. Like many, she’s angered that DND walked away after rendering so much of their lands unusable. “Just because we gave them the rights to practise on it, it does not mean we gave up our rights to it,” she says. “This reserve was nothing but a garbage dump for them.”

The risks of lost and abandoned munitions are more than theoretical. A DND report of its Unexploded Explosive Ordnance and Legacy Sites Program activities for 2011 states there have been “10 confirmed UXO-related deaths” on Vernon-area practice range land since the end of the Second World War. Other DND reports put the Vernon-area death toll at seven to nine, more evidence of the lax record-keeping that has made it near impossible to gauge the scope and scale of unexploded munitions. DND’s best guess: 20,000 hecatares of Vernon-area First Nations and privately held lands may be contaminated.

Among the deaths: three men were killed in the spring of 1948 while loading topsoil into a truck. In March 1963, Boy Scout Don Hope, 14, and Cub Scout Grant Morgan, 12, were killed instantly with the explosion of a mortar they’d discovered at a training site used during the Second World War. David Crane, then an 11-year-old Cub, was severely injured by the blast. Though DND paid for his friend’s funerals, Crane received neither compensation nor an apology, though he still bears the lingering pain, shrapnel wounds and trauma, he told the Vancouver Sun in 2013. “I’m probably the youngest war veteran there is from World War II,” he said.

In April 1973, two other children were killed, and two more injured in the blast of what is thought to have been a two-inch mortar. “In addition, many items of unexploded ordnance have been discovered on legacy sites in the area, continuing to the present day,” says a 2007 DND report. “Items include mortars (high explosive and smoke), grenades, detonators, flares, anti-tank munitions, artillery shells and small arms ammunition.” Remarkably, none of the dead were members of the Okanagan band. “We’ve been fortunate,” says Chief Louis. “The thing about luck is: eventually it runs out.”

A three-inch mortar from the World War I or World War II era that was found on the Goose Lake range in Vernon B.C. , October 27, 2015. (Photograph by Jason Frason)

The chief and council grow increasingly impatient with DND’s evasiveness and its current commitment to a cleanup that is so underfunded it would take decades at the current rate. Currently the Tsuu T’ina and Okanagan band are the only active UXO removal projects on reserve land, says DND spokesman Evan Koronewski. This fiscal year’s budget for all UXO sites in Canada is $6.8 million. The Okanagan band council looks in frustration at nearby developments like the 36-hole Predator Ridge Golf Resort community and the ultra-lux Sparkling Hill wellness resort, and think of the lost opportunities on land that is every bit as spectacular. Darcy Aubin, director of Lands and Economic Development for the band, says attempts to get developers interested in their land usually end in the same way. “As soon as they hear there’s a UXO problem, they walk away. ‘Well, good luck with that. When it’s clean, give us a call.’”

The band’s plight is not unique. The military leased or appropriated reserve land across the country for exercises and training. The terrain was often rugged, isolated, and sparsely populated by band members powerless to thwart the will of the federal government. Just last year the Enoch Cree Nation closed indefinitely for safety reasons their Indian Lake Golf Course west of Edmonton, throwing 50 employees out of work. Chief Ron Morin cited evidence that the military hid the scale of the land’s wartime use as a bombing test range.

In Ontario, the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation have been fighting since the end of the Second World War for the return of about 1,000 hectares of land along Lake Huron appropriated in 1942 under the War Measures Act for a military training ground known as Camp Ipperwash. Now the return of the lands is further delayed by the unexploded ordnance, requiring a clearance project estimated to take 20 years. The department has spent more than $29 million alone on an environmental investigation of the site.

As retired major Lewis warned in his prescient analysis, correcting the military’s sins of the past has saddled the Canadian Forces with a potentially devastating bill. There are “several hundred” confirmed UXO sites on lands across Canada, “with a further 1,100 sites off Canada’s Atlantic coast and 26 off the Pacific.” He cites the example of the U.S. Navy’s decontamination of one rocky, uninhabited 115-sq.-km Hawaiian island used during the war as a training range. It took almost 10 years of clearance and restoration before it was returned to Hawaii in 2003. The cost: US$460 million.

Could this happen in Canada, and how would the Canadian Forces pay for it, Lewis asks. Much depends on how “tolerant” Canadians remain about the danger that lies beneath. “Is a large-scale mandated cleanup likely to occur any time soon? Perhaps not,” he writes. “However, failing to plan for such an eventuality could end up being a very costly error.”

Such a cleanup was not a priority for the previous Conservative government. The budget of the UXO legacy sites cleanup program was cut by 50 per cent with a significant reduction in staff, says a report by the director of ammunition and explosives, delivered last year to the deputy minister of defence and the chief of the defence staff. “Given the very large number of sites that remain for assessment and action, the reduction of budget and personnel, if continued through the medium and long terms, increases the risk posed by the UXO problem to Canadians,” it warned.

In Chief Louis’s experience, DND’s usual strategy is to force disputes into court, grind down opponents, then cut a deal outside the courtroom. “If they’re going to expect us to go to court, don’t expect to meet us on the courthouse steps,” Louis says. “We are going for full damages. If they want to manage risks, we’ll give them a risk to manage.” He hopes it doesn’t come to that, he says. It’s no way to treat an ally.

Atop the band’s war memorial is a metal sculpture paying homage to the famous Second World War photo of the American flag-raising at Iwo Jima. The sculpture shows soldiers hefting the flagpole into place. A woman and man in feathers and headdress are at their side. Sharing the burden.

Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day attends a news conference at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto on Wednesday, September 9. 2015. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP)

OTTAWA – Wonky weather conditions are prompting aboriginal leaders to raise concerns about the impact of climate change on winter roads, which serve as lifelines for food, fuel and other necessities in several northern communities.

Isadore Day, the Ontario regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, said the reliability of the northern winter road network is in jeopardy in his province.

“The winter roads have essentially become a way of life for the communities and now they can’t rely on those winter roads,” Day said, noting the network is used to offset the cost to bring essential goods to fly-in reserves by air.

The problem exemplifies why there was outcry from First Nations during the recent COP21 climate change summit in Paris, Day said.

“This is the type of issue where the rubber hits the road,” he said.

“There will be no road if we don’t have an opportunity to speak for ourselves on the issue of climate change and this certainly is a direct impact.”

If people want access into the north, the only viable way now is to have a proper road network, Day added.

NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus, who represents a northern Ontario riding that includes a number of First Nations communities, said money needs to be invested in sustainable infrastructure.

There has been a long-standing push for permanent roads but climate change has made the issue much more pressing, he noted.

“My message to the government is ‘you’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is when you make these promises,'” Angus said.

“This is the front line and this is where the action needs to be taking place now.”

There is “every evidence” Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples are indeed on the front lines of climate change, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“I think it is very worrying and I think that as we look not only to Ontario but to Manitoba, the proposals for the eastern road there, it is something that we are looking at and knowing that we’ve got to build the kind of resilient infrastructure that will deal with the changing climate.”

The federal Liberal government is open to examining the impacts of the issue to allow for a long-term strategy to be developed, Bennett added.

“This will require a real collaborative effort,” she said, highlighting that permanent infrastructure would help to create resource revenue in the future.

“We need to have everybody included in really assessing the need and then developing feasibility projects and proposals.”

Day said First Nations leaders from Ontario plan to press the minister to bring this “essential issue” to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet table.

Solutions will also have to include all levels of government, he said.

“For what it is worth, you’re going to have every government at the table to ensure these road systems are done properly and that they’re done in a timely fashion,” Day said.

OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government showed more solidarity with Canada’s First Nations on Friday as it lifted sanctions against indigenous communities that have not complied with a Conservative spending transparency law.

The decision was quickly condemned by the Opposition Tories and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which warned that the move would leave First Nations people in the dark about how their elected leaders spend public money.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said her department will stop imposing punitive measures — such as withholding funds — on those communities not in compliance with the First Nations Financial Transparency Act.

Bennett, who described the changes as part of Ottawa’s new “nation-to-nation” relationship with indigenous peoples, also said she’s suspending court actions against those First Nations not complying with the law.

“Transparency and accountability are paramount to any government, whether it is municipal, provincial, federal or First Nation,” she said in a statement.

“We will work in full partnership with First Nations leadership and organizations on the way forward to improve accountability and transparency. This cannot be achieved without the engagement of First Nations and its members.”

Under the Act, First Nations are required to publicly disclose audited financial statements and information about the salaries and expenses of chiefs and councillors.

Those failing to do so by July 29 of last year faced escalating consequences ranging from public shaming to court action.

One community, the Onion Lake Cree Nation on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, took the government to court, unsuccessfully trying to convince the Conservatives to talk with First Nations about their finances.

Bennett said she’s hopeful that lifting sanctions will open the door to talks with indigenous communities and help both levels of government to work together.

“These initial steps will enable us to engage in discussions on transparency and accountability that are based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership and that build towards a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous peoples.”

Aaron Wudrick, the CTF’s director, said the move makes no sense.

“A law without consequence for non-compliance is a toothless law,” he said. “As such, soon many First Nations people across the country will again be in the dark as to how their elected leaders spend public dollars.”

Wudrick noted that the vast majority of First Nations were in compliance with the law both last year and in fiscal 2014-15.

“Suspending enforcement of this law is wrong, and completely undermines the very principles this government claims to be advancing.”

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives were also critical, accusing the Liberal government of gutting a federal law without going through proper parliamentary channels.

“For all practical purposes, this is a repeal of the act, being carried out without actually bothering to give members of Parliament any chance to debate it,” said indigenous affairs critic Cathy McLeod.

“It is ironic that a law about transparency is being gutted in such a non-transparent way.”

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde welcomed what he called a “new approach,” predicting it would result in “real accountability by all parties.”

]]>OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed the need for a new, nation-to-nation relationship with Aboriginal Peoples as he spoke to First Nations leaders on Tuesday.

“I promise you that I will be your partner in the years to come, and hope that you will be mine,” he said. “We have much work to do together.”

Trudeau said a new relationship needs to be established, based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.

“I know that renewing our relationship is an ambitious goal, but I am equally certain that it is one we can, and will, achieve if we work together,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister has vowed to move on implementing recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including the pledge to look into the question of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

This afternoon, three members of Trudeau’s cabinet _ Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould _ are scheduled to provide more information on the missing and murdered women inquiry.

“We have made this inquiry a priority for our government because those touched by this national tragedy have waited long enough,” Trudeau said. “The victims deserve justice, their families _ an opportunity to heal and to be heard.”

In his address, Trudeau also said the Liberal government understands constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations are not an inconvenience but rather “a sacred obligation.”

Trudeau has promised to ensure aboriginal children have access to education and that he will lift the two per cent cap on reserve program funding.

“As you know, that limit has been in place for nearly 20 years,” he said. “It hasn’t kept up with the demographic realities of your communities, nor the actual costs of program delivery.”

On a cloudless October afternoon, Albert Adrià—chef sibling of Ferran Adrià, and his partner in the game-changing elBulli (closed now, but, for over a decade the world’s most famously inventive restaurant)—was in Calgary creating ethereal perfection on a waffle iron that looked straight out of a Holiday Inn Express. One by one, he handed off waffles to Calgary chefs John Michael MacNeil and Scott Pohorelic, who smeared them with thick, snow-white yogourt, purple saskatoon-berry purée and crumbled almond spongecake. They scooped smoked ice milk drizzled with birch syrup into cups as giddy guests waited. #TeamSaskatoon, as they became known on Twitter, weren’t just making waffles; they were making the most delicious, most Albertan, waffles ever conceived.

While Adrià was perhaps the brightest luminary at the event, he was just one of a constellation of international Michelin stars and Alberta chefs who had been quietly rooting through the province’s pantry for the past several months. The chefs had been selected to participate in an intensive process to explore and shape the province’s culinary identity. At a Sunday garden party at Rouge Restaurant in Calgary—watched by millions around the world on social media—the seven Alberta-inspired dishes were revealed.

Six months prior, a globe-trotting culinary agitator, Alessandro Porcelli, announced in his thick Italian accent, “We’re going to do something very sexy here.” Porcelli’s itinerant Cook It Raw movement—nothing to do with raw food, but rather about having some of the world’s best chefs reimagine food through to its foundations of hunting, gathering, fishing, butchery, pickling, smoking, and cooking over fire—had touched down in Alberta. (Not randomly—he was courted by and funded through the Alberta Culinary Tourism Alliance, a non-profit with the goal of fostering culinary tourism in the province.) And where Porcelli goes, so do some of the world’s best avant-garde chefs.

Porcelli found the calibre of local chefs to be high, and wondered why Alberta doesn’t get more attention in international—or even national—culinary circles. The chefs he selected included Connie DeSousa of Charcut Roast House in Calgary, Shane Chartrand of Sage Restaurant at River Cree Resort near Edmonton, and Eden Hrabec of Crazyweed in Canmore. He also puzzled at the underappreciated First Nations’ influence in mainstream Alberta cuisine, when hunting, foraging, drying and smoking are dominant trends elsewhere. Add eye-popping agricultural productivity and abundant wild, indigenous food, and you have a chefs’ playground. He thought Cook It Raw could put Alberta on the map as a global gastronomic destination to watch.

Porcelli, a semi-professional basketball player-turned-café-owner-turned PR genius (for Noma restaurant and then the Danish government), showed up for dinner about a year ago at Three Boars restaurant in Edmonton’s university district. Brayden Kozak, co-owner and head chef at this farm-to-table favourite, recognized Porcelli immediately. “I had no idea he was scouting,” laughs Kozak with a toothy, Ewan McGregor-esque grin. “It seemed really exclusive. Getting invited as a cook never crossed my mind.”

The invitation to participate didn’t come without obligations. In May, the Alberta chefs were told to detach from family, work and WiFi for a four-day, zero-frills quasi-survivalist experience on Cucumber Island, a sandspit in Lac La Biche, 245 km northeast of Edmonton. By day, they roasted in a late spring heatwave. By night, they slept in canvas tents. They built their own cob oven for cooking. Moose wandered within metres of their tents, and northern pike seemed to bite with each cast. A First Nations sweatlodge guide led them through a ceremony, a profoundly introspective experience by all accounts.

Throughout the retreat, Porcelli instigated discussions about cooking and food. The intensity of the experience brought the chefs together. “We all knew one another in passing,” says soft-spoken, bushy-bearded Cam Dobranski, of Calgary’s Wine Bar and Brasserie Kensington. “Lac La Biche quashed any of that Edmonton-Calgary rivalry.”

On their final day, with bloodstained aprons—they had just been shown how to skin and butcher a bison by First Nations hunters and cooks—the chefs were divided into seven teams. Each would create a dish based around one iconic Alberta ingredient: honey, beef, bison, canola, root vegetables, Red Fife wheat, and saskatoon berries. In October, their international counterparts would arrive with ideas of their own, a week ahead of the final presentation.

Wild, foraged Alberta rose hips. Photo by Mark Mahaney

Porcelli’s Michelin-starred colleagues included Syrco Bakker (Pure C restaurant, in the Netherlands), Jp McMahon (Ireland’s Aniar and Cava Bodega), Preeti Mistry (Juhu Beach Club, in Oakland, Calif.), and Amanda Cohen (Dirt Candy, in New York City). Still jet-lagged, they were “white hatted” at a cocktail reception at Calgary’s Model Milk restaurant and whisked off with their local colleagues to Mount Engadine Lodge, deep in Spray Valley Provincial Park. (Adrià would arrive a few days later.)

It was Boy Scouts by day, and in the wee hours, the culinary equivalent of the Group of Seven’s Algonquin School discussions. Porcelli scheduled four days filled with excruciatingly rugged activities of canoeing, fishing, learning elk calls and archery. Every evening sample dishes were prepared and tasted. Fierce discussions erupted—one big family gathered around the dinner table. As teams cycled through—Team Honey, Team Root Veg, and so on—dishes were refined and rethought. Toronto chef Jamie Kennedy had flown in to offer his perspectives, given his decades of work in creating a Canadian culinary identity.

Back in Calgary, it was time to reveal Alberta’s culinary narrative through the seven ingredient-based dishes. An invitation-only dinner for 60 in the teaching kitchens at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology began with a still life boreal tableau based around honey. (Alberta produces one-third of the nation’s honey crop.) The dish included honey-cured trout sprinkled with dill pollen, with bright green dots of spruce-and-smoked-leek emulsion, rhubarb and cranberry gel, goldenrod-coloured salted honey sponge toffee and a hopped mead bannock. Swedish superstar chef Magnus Ek’s “new nordic” aesthetic was obvious in the team’s presentation, but so were the subtly sweet undertones of so much Canadian Prairie cooking.

The canola course followed, perhaps the most challenging of all the ingredients. Yes, it’s a $6.1-billion per year industry in Alberta, but how do you create a dish around what is largely considered an export commodity crop? Here it was a study in Brassicas, the genus to which canola belongs. They rested delicate Brussels sprout leaves on a creamy squash-canola curd. They created a smoked egg aioli. They sprouted and pickled canola seeds, and dressed compressed turnip slices with apple cider and nutty, cold-pressed canola oil. Jp McMahon brought a concept from his Michelin-starred Galway restaurant to the table as seasoning: burnt kale ash with salt, a twist on salt and pepper.

In the province of steak and potatoes, perogies and borscht, root vegetables were reimagined in a dish with over 15 different preparations including a garnish of deep-fried lichen. As Calgary’s Cam Dobranski rattled off the various elements, from salt-dough roasted beets to a ravioli— made from powdered red beets and konjac, a vegetable-based gelling agent—filled with parsley root, horseradish and chèvre, he laughed, admitting it “didn’t seem like so many things” as they were making them. And there was East-West crispy fried Red Fife wheat flatbread slathered with a bright green fenugreek sauce, wild boar jowl, compressed Okanagan-grown Asian pear, fried red cabbage confetti and popped Red Fife wheat berries. There was a deconstructed bison stew, and bavette of beef.

Then dessert, made by Adrià, Scott Pohorelic and John Michael MacNeil. It arrived in a birch log, split in half, and with a cutout in the rounded bark side. This was covered by lacy gingerbread tuile you had to break through with your spoon to reveal the housemade yogourt and saskatoon purée with crumbled almond spongecake, birch syrup and roasted pumpkin seeds. Thousands of Instagrams, tweets, and Facebook photos flooded the Internet, tagged #teamhoney, #teamRedFife, #RawAlberta.

A very short sleep later, it was time for a broader reveal at Rouge to the 200 people who’d paid $125 a ticket to taste Alberta’s newly minted edible identity. “We [chefs] do everything in silos,” explained John Jackson, co-chef and co-owner of Charcut Roast House, who took part in Cook it Raw two years ago in Charleston, S.C. “Everyone is talking about culinary tourism, but before that happens, we need a culinary identity.”

It’s too soon to know what will come of this effort. As the afternoon wore on, Adrià buoyed his jetlag with a pint of Calgary lager with his new Albertan friends. This is why he travels, Adrià said in his broken English. “Cook It Raw is muy importante. We’re equals. We’re compañeros. I like that.” “It made the scene a little smaller,” says Kozak. “It’s nice having friends who all understand the same issues. But what happens now? Everyone is expecting us to carry the torch. Now . . . we have to do something.”

Place squash and red pepper in a large pot. Add enough water to cover, and simmer on medium-low heat until tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the squash and red pepper from the water.

In a large-capacity professional blender, purée the squash and red pepper until smooth. (If using a regular home blender, work in two batches and you may need to mash the squash a bit by hand at first.) Allow the purée to cool slightly if it’s still quite hot. Add ginger, lemon juice, honey, and canola oil. When blended, place in stainless bowl. Cool in the refrigerator for approx 30 minutes, or until completely cool.

Add all eggs into cool mixture and stir well.

Create a double boiler on the stove by placing a small pot half-full with water on medium heat. Place the stainless bowl with the mixture so that it rests on top of the pot with water. With a whisk, stir the mixture continuously until it thickens (approximately 20 to 25 minutes). You may see ribbons resembling scrambled egg throughout. Don’t worry. When the mixture is a thick curd, remove from heat, and place back into the blender. Blend until completely smooth. Adjust seasoning, adding the salt, and even a touch more lemon or ginger as desired.

*To make kale ash, trim black kale (also known as cavelo nero, Tuscan kale, lacinato kale, or dinosaur kale) of its stems. Reserve leaves for roasted kale. Place stems on a cookie sheet and into a 375-degree Fahrenheit oven until black and dry, about 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. Blend in a spice grinder and pass through a fine metal sieve. Add sea salt to taste.

[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misidentified the location of Pure C restaurant.]

Robert-Falcon Ouellette, one of 10 Indigenous MPs elected to government. (Photograph by John Woods)

In the final weeks of the federal election campaign, Tania Cameron took an unpaid leave from work to devote herself full-time to getting out the Indigenous vote in the sprawling, northwest Ontario riding of Kenora. Her mom, Brenda Beardy, acted as an unofficial driver and Ojibwa translator, helping with webcasts, YouTube videos and call-in radio shows.

The Conservative government’s “Un-Fair Elections Act,” as Cameron renamed it, created new burdens for on-reserve voters this fall. Proof of residency can be tricky when a utility bill has a single name for a house with six eligible voters. Cameron, a councillor with the Dalles First Nation, helped voters get registered, find the right ID or get proof-of-residence documents. The 41-year-old mother of three once ran for the NDP, but her recent registration effort was non-partisan: “I didn’t care who people voted for, so long as they voted.”

In the end, the First Nations vote rose 69 per cent in Kenora. In the remote community of Pikangikum, north of Red Lake, it jumped 273 per cent. On Onigaming, near Dalles First Nation, four polling stations briefly ran out of ballots. “I think the sentiment, from the elders right down to the young people, is: ‘We’ve got to get rid of Harper. Conditions are so dire.’ ”

Indeed, fully 26 of the Kenora riding’s 40 First Nations live under boil-water “advisories.” On the Neskantaga First Nation, where a boil-water warning has been in place for 20 years, dirty water is blamed for a host of illnesses, sores and rashes; its Oji-Cree residents bathe their babies using diaper wipes. The riding’s problems are not unique. But neither was the enthusiasm of its Indigenous electorate, which helped the Liberals, who are promising a “renewed nation-to-nation relationship” with the country’s Indigenous peoples, claim another Conservative riding.

The outgoing government—considered callous, antagonistic and indifferent by many First Nations people—“awoke a sleeping giant” in Indigenous voters, says Derek Nepinak, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. Across the country, at least nine First Nations communities reported ballot shortages. (Elections Canada confirmed five, and tells Maclean’s these reports were “taken very seriously,” and that “no one was denied the opportunity to vote.”)

The community’s sky-high expectations put the new Liberal government in a “dangerous place,” says Sara Mainville, a laywer and chief of the Couchiching First Nation in northwestern Ontario. “It’s like walking through a minefield.” Incoming prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has a Haida raven tattooed to his bicep, risks looking monstrously hypocritical if he follows in the footsteps of previous Liberal leaders, who tended to forget the lofty promises made to the community once in office. Trudeau is promising $2.6 billion in new funding for on-reserve schooling, to deliver clean water to every reserve community within five years and to provide funding for the construction of Freedom Road to Shoal Lake 40 in Manitoba. He’s also pledged to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 recommendations and give First Nations a veto over development in their territories. In his first address to media, Trudeau reiterated his pledge to hold an inquiry into the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Lalita Bharadwaj, a toxicologist and associate professor of public health at the University of Saskatchewan, told Maclean’s that the five-year window for clean water is “not realistic.” Despite billions spent in the past decade, no “quantifiable progress” has been made delivering clean drinking water to reserves. And some of the TRC’s recommendations are outside federal purview (including having the Pope apologize for residential schools).

But “expectations should be high,” says Jody Wilson-Raybould, who took the new riding of Vancouver–Granville for the Liberals. “Our country needs to be dealing with these issues in a substantive way. They’re some of the most pressing issues we face. Mr. Trudeau recognizes that something needs to be done, that we need to take a huge step forward.” Wilson-Raybould, 44, a former prosecutor and former regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, is considered a cabinet lock, and could potentially become the country’s first Aboriginal minister of Aboriginal Affairs. The We Wai Kai national is the daughter of influential B.C. chief and activist Bill Wilson.

Wilson-Raybould remembers being dragged to political meetings, growing up. “Sit there, listen,” her dad would tell her. “That’s how you’ll learn.” Her father is credited with convincing Pierre Trudeau to recognize Aboriginal and treaty rights and once, during an argument, told the elder Trudeau that young Jody might one day be prime minister. (Wilson was also provocative, and once said it was “a stupid mistake” for coastal First Nations to have accepted European colonizers, whom he characterized, not incorrectly, as “homely, smelly and diseased.”)

Wilson-Raybould also credits her teacher mom—who once sent her to the principal’s office for acting out when she was in her Grade 3 class—and her grandmother Puugladee for showing her how to lead. It was Puugladee who gave her the name Puglaas, or “woman born to noble people,” at a Gilford Island naming potlatch when she was 8. It’s now also her Twitter handle.

Party insiders say she speaks her mind; and she was among those First Nations leaders to describe last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Tsilhqot’in as a “game changer” for its potential impact on Indigenous land rights.

If the new Liberal government truly is as committed to righting this relationship as Wilson-Raybould suggests, it could become apparent as early as November. A deeply symbolic first move would be renaming the federal ministry of Aboriginal and northern affairs, replacing the dated term “Aboriginal,” considered offensive by some, with “Indigenous,” a more neutral catch-all, which includes all First Nations, Inuit and Metis inhabitants of Canada. Trudeau could also appoint one of his eight Indigenous MPs to head the newly minted ministry.

The election of 10 Indigenous MPs (two are NDP) also provides Trudeau the opportunity to support the formation of a cross-party Indigenous caucus, not unlike the U.S. Congressional black caucus, which could pool resources to help promote equity. Both Wilson-Raybould and another Liberal rookie, Robert-Falcon Ouellette support it.

Ouellette took Winnipeg Centre, an urban riding with a significant Indigenous population, which saw a 26 per cent jump in voter turnout in this election. That helped Ouellette, a Cree Ph.D. with formidable retail skills, knock off NDP incumbent Pat Martin, who’s had a lock on the gritty, urban riding since 1997. Ouellette was deliberately targeting Indigenous and new voters, believing he could win if he was able to boost turnout by seven per cent, a strategy laughed off by political veterans. “Look who’s laughing now,” he told Maclean’s this week, with a chuckle.

Trudeau could also follow the lead of Rachel Notley. In June, in one of her first acts as Alberta premier, she asked each of her ministers to formulate a detailed plan outlining the ways their ministry would nurture and protect the province’s Indigenous communities, part of a broader effort to improve relations.

None of these initiatives would be particularly costly, but would signal a desire to rebuild Canada’s relationship with the descendants of its first inhabitants.

One of them, Ouellette, is now representing the riding where he spent time “couch surfing” as a boy with his mom, who struggled to put him and his brother through school. But for Ouellette, 38, the election’s greatest moment was watching his 88-year-old grandmother react to the win. Both his parents are dead. His grandma “remembers the family’s really tough times.” On election night, shortly before midnight, it dawned on her, he says: Someone in her family was going to be sitting in Parliament. “She just shook her head. She never believed it was possible.”

By then, Ouellette’s kids were asleep. He’s got five; the youngest, 3, came to the family through the foster care system. His wife, Catherine Cantin, who he met in his teens when they were both cadets, was in tears. They’d been “super nervous,” he admits. The longtime NDP riding was considered “untakeable,” and he’d quit his job at the University of Manitoba to campaign full-time, putting his family under tremendous strain.

Some aboriginal communities saw voter turnout spike by up to 270 per cent in the Oct. 19 election despite the Fair Elections Act which made it harder for someone to vote without approved identification.

In the riding of Kenora, which includes 40 First Nations in northern Ontario, voting on the reserves was up 73 per cent — almost 3,000 voters. At least four of those First Nations ran out of ballots and either used photocopies or waited for more to be brought in.

“It was so heartening to see,” said Tania Cameron, a driving force in getting those people out to the polls — many for the first time — both in Ontario and across Canada. “I was thinking we’re going to see a turnout that Harper never expected.”

Cameron said she feels the new ID requirements effectively disenfranchised many, especially in remote aboriginal communities, where getting a driver’s licence or piece of government-issued identification means travelling to an urban centre.

“They can’t afford to get a driver’s licence,” she said.

Many flagged those concerns when the Fair Elections Act was introduced. It was passed last year opposed by the NDP, who said it would make it harder for people to vote and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who said he would repeal it.

Cameron, a band councillor in Dalles First Nation started up First Nations Rock the Vote on Facebook and organized countless “ID clinics” where people could see if they were registered or had the required identification to cast a ballot. Others started up similar chapters across the country, urging First Nations people to vote.

Harper saw increased political activism among First Nations during the Idle No More movement and thought “we’ve got to make sure these people don’t vote,” Cameron said. She wanted to prove him wrong.

“Harper’s intent was to suppress the indigenous vote and that motivated me,” said Cameron, a former NDP candidate. “It just caught on. I think the excitement of getting rid of the Harper government, showing Harper that his oppression tactics weren’t going to work — I think that was a huge motivator for many people who decided to step up.”

A record 10 aboriginal MPs were elected when the Liberals swept to power Monday, ending the Conservative rule of almost a decade. In Kenora, where aboriginal voter turnout was high, Conservative Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford went down in defeat.

Although Elections Canada has not calculated national aboriginal voter turnout yet, chiefs say the election “awoke a sleeping giant” in a usually quiet electorate. When some polling stations ran out of ballots, Cameron said no one walked away in disgust. They just waited until another batch was brought in.

Leah Gazan, a First Nations activist and education instructor at the University of Winnipeg, said the turnout was a direct reaction to the divisive tactics of the Harper government. Bringing in Bill C-51 — which many felt criminalized First Nations activists — and cutting funding for aboriginal organizations while weakening environmental protection only strengthened the resolve of First Nations voters, she said.

“He was quite violent with indigenous people through aggressive cuts and aggressive legislation that aimed to silence indigenous people,” Gazan said. “As much as he attempted to divide, he really brought people … together.”

It’s not clear how sustainable the political engagement is, she said. The Liberals have made a lot of promises to First Nations people, not least of which is to call an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.

But this election has shown aboriginal voters are a force to be reckoned with, Gazan said.

“Part of the reason why they don’t pay attention is because of voter turnout — it doesn’t impact their privilege,” she said. “With a higher indigenous turnout, they’ll know they can’t take it for granted.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/disenfranchisement-fuels-turnout-of-aboriginal-voters/feed/1Can the NDP be first place for First Nations?http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/can-the-ndp-be-first-place-for-first-nations/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/can-the-ndp-be-first-place-for-first-nations/#commentsThu, 08 Oct 2015 10:28:54 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=766793With 22 Indigenous candidates, and a fully-costed platform, the NDP is hoping to turn Aboriginal voters away from the Liberals

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is finishing off his day in Kenora. The sprawling northwestern Ontario riding is home to 40 Indigenous communities, 25 of them under boil-water advisories—though it’s hard to consider these “advisories” when successive governments have allowed them stand for decades.

Conditions on the Shoal Lake 40 First Nation is particularly galling. It provides Winnipeg with all its drinking water, but the community itself has had to endure a boil-water advisory for 17 years. Residents were cut off from the outside world, with no year-round access road, when it was tapped by the Manitoba capital decades ago.

On the nearby Neskantaga First Nation, where a boil-water warning has been in place for 20 years, dirty water is blamed for a host of illnesses, sores and rashes; its Oji-Cree residents are forced to bathe their babies using cleansing wipes.

So it’s an important riding with deadly serious issues, and one in which the NDP, represented by former provincial NDP leader and Kenora MPP Howard Hampton, hope to pick off Resources Minister Greg Rickford. Right now Hampton and Liberal Bob Nault, who represented the riding under Jean Chrétien, are tied in support at 29 and 28 per cent respectively, according to a recent Environics poll. Rickford is ahead, at 40 per cent.

For a long time, many Indigenous voters in the 40 per cent Indigenous riding could be counted on to vote Liberal—but that’s starting to change. Many still remember the First Nations Governance Act that Nault introduced when he was minister of Indian affairs; that landmark legislation—designed to clean up reserve finances—was widely hated, particularly by chiefs. More and more Indigenous voters, who traditionally voted Liberal, are shifting allegiance to the NDP.

Jack Anawak, who is running for the NDP in Nunavut, is the most high-profile NDP switch-hitter. For Anawak, who supported the party in his youth, “it’s not so much a switch, but a return to my roots.” For the longest time, he says, “a lot of Indigenous people thought the NDP was the party who could best represent them—but they didn’t think the NDP had a hope of forming government. Now they do.”

It’s hardly been a stampede, but the party has attracted 22 Indigenous candidates this election, among them a host of prominent names, including artist and consultant Aaron Paquette, who is running in the new Edmonton–Manning riding; Cameron Alexis, a retired RCMP officer and former chief of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation running in Alberta’s Peace River–Westlock riding; and Melissa Atkinson, a lawyer and former chair of the Yukon Human Rights Commission, who is running to represent that territory’s lone riding.

For Anawak, the choice was simple: “It’s the first time a leader of any major federal party has stressed the importance of negotiating on a nation-to-nation basis. That’s deeply important to Indigenous people, says Anawak. “Not so long ago Inuit were just numbers to the government. They couldn’t care less about learning to spell our names. So they just gave us numbers.” Anawak had one, too: 83922.

The pledge to deal on a “nation-to-nation” basis was a key announcement made by NDP leader Tom Mulcair today at the River Cree Resort in Enoch, Alta. He was there to take part in a forum on First Nations issues, but was the only party leader to show up. So he took the opportunity to release the party’s Indigenous platform; the NDP is alone in releasing a full platform of promises for Indigenous communities and people.

The party also announced $1.8 billion for First Nations education—more than any other party—and promised to create a cabinet-level committee chaired by the prime minister, to ensure that all government decisions respect treaty rights, inherent rights and Canada’s international obligations, including the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The NDP also reannounced a plan to hold an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls within 100 days of being elected. The party is promising to remove the two per cent funding cap on social transfers to First Nations.

“For 13 years, the Liberals had the opportunity to advance the issue of First Nations people. Instead, we got the funding cap,” says Idle No More activist Tania Cameron, who ran for the NDP twice in Kenora. “They had a chance to change this. First Nations communities suffered for it.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/can-the-ndp-be-first-place-for-first-nations/feed/4Why can’t we get clean water to First Nation reserves?http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-cant-we-get-clean-water-to-first-nation-reserves/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-cant-we-get-clean-water-to-first-nation-reserves/#commentsWed, 07 Oct 2015 11:02:10 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=766153Boil-water advisories are in place in 93 First Nations communities, for complex reasons—and Justin Trudeau's five-year goal to end them may be 'unrealistic'

The remains of a Canadian flag can be seen flying over a building in Attawapiskat, Ont. on November 29, 2011. The federal government is forcing the troubled Attawapiskat First Nation to pay a private-sector consultant about $1,300 a day to run its finances – even though the government’s own assessments say the third-party management system is not cost-effective. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

Lalita Bharadwaj is a toxicologist and associate professor of public health at the University of Saskatchewan, who specializes in human-health risk assessment in rural populations. Bharadwaj co-authored a recent study, published in the Canadian Water Resources Journal in September, examining the “quantifiable progress” of First Nations water-management strategies across the country between 2001 and 2013. She spoke to Maclean’s from Saskatoon one day after Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised to end boil-water advisories on First Nation reserves within five years, if elected prime minister. Today, 93 First Nations communities must boil their water for one minute before drinking or using it. In some places, such as Neskantaga First Nation in Ontario, this has been going on for more than two decades.

Q: What are your thoughts on Trudeau’s commitment to end all boil-water advisories within five years, if elected?

A: Based on our research, there have been over 10 years of policies developed from 2001 to 2013, and it’s clearly shown that the approaches have not yet made a difference within the First Nations communities. To promise to end boil-water advisories within a five-year period is just not a realistic goal.

Q: In what sense? What would need to happen for that to be realized?

A: There needs to be an understanding that we have 600 First Nations [communities] and they are not homogenous, and one top-down approach will not address the issue. There need to be more individual consultations with each community. The population is different, the geographical location is varied, [as is] the leadership, the number of people [needed] to facilitate human resources toward the management of water. I could go on.

Q: How does water management actually operate now for communities on reserves?

A: The federal government has fiduciary responsibility for First Nations, whereas the provincial governments basically manage and govern water resources. So when you look at First Nations and their relationship with the federal government, there aren’t the mechanisms that are set up in the provincial sphere to manage drinking water. So basically, First Nations are left in a vacuum.

Q: You say Trudeau’s promise is unrealistic. How could he be imagining this is possible?

A: I’m not sure how Mr. Trudeau has come up with this idea, because the causes are so complex. It could be because the treatment system doesn’t work, or it’s ineffective to treat the water. It could be because the raw water source is contaminated. It could be because the pressure within the piping is not allowing for the delivery of pressurized water to the house, and that would affect the chlorination process. There are a number of factors.

Q: Your study looks at the “quantifiable progress of the First Nations water management strategy” between 2001 and 2013. What does it show?

A: It’s an unfortunate situation. We have not made any improvements, even though billions of dollars have been put in place to resolve the issue.

Q: What improvements haven’t been made?

A: Improvements in infrastructure, in technical ability and capacity in training, in addressing high-risk communities. Really, if you go through the results section of that paper, you’ll notice that a lot of the information is missing in whether the outcomes have been met by the plans and policies put in place.

Q: If we’re looking at the number of boil-water advisories over the years, are there fewer? Would that be a measure of success, or lack of success?

A: In June 2014, there were 92 boil-water advisories; if you look at Health Canada’s website today, you’ll see there are 93 communities under boil-water advisories. Again, the factors contributing to boil-water advisories vary, and it is not clear how those advisories are being measured.

Q: What have been the barriers to making improvements? Why hasn’t all the money that’s been spent made a difference?

A: One of the big issues, in my opinion, is that we don’t recognize First Nations as unique groups of individuals; the issues around water are not the same for each community. As a result, money being spent, for example, to increase training or education about how to operate a water system may work for some communities but not others. Another example [is] geographic location and remoteness: Putting money toward a treatment plant may work for one community, but not another, where it may break all the time because of permafrost.

Q: A number of audits over the years have shown confusion over responsibility for water provision. That’s a big problem.

A: You have Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, who provide 80 per cent of funding toward water-treatment systems and infrastructure for First Nations communities. The chief and council need to provide 20 per cent. Then you have the role of Health Canada, who will monitor the drinking-water supply. But also, there are roles within First Nations where you have environmental health officers [who] may be employed through the tribal council, and who might be employed through Health Canada, also conducting water-quality assessment. And in some of the research that we’ve been doing recently, we’ve noted that there has not been consistent annual monitoring of First Nations water supply. And then, [for] raw water, there is Environment Canada. So when you think about it, water regulation and governance involves multi-institutions and is fragmented, because the individual government agencies don’t talk to each other.

Q: What is the consequence of inconsistent monitoring?

A: Inconsistent monitoring, at least in my opinion, will pose a health risk.

Q: Do we know if, or how many, First Nations people have died because of contaminated water?

A: We don’t have those numbers.

Q: Could it have happened?

A: Yes, it could have happened.

Q: How real is that threat?

A: I think it’s a real threat. If you look at the health statistics, there are a lot of young people on First Nations, and if, for example, a communication of a microbial risk isn’t provided to that community, there could be exposure to young children who are more vulnerable. Also, elderly people who have compromised immune systems would also be at higher risk.

Q: Are those data tracked?

A: I don’t have those data. I don’t know if they are available, and how accurate they could be. From a practical and logistic perspective, it is difficult to track a water-borne illness unless it is specifically doctor-diagnosed, where you see a sudden spike in individuals presenting with diarrhea or vomiting, because you need to link that exposure to drinking water to the clinical diagnosis. It’s often difficult to do that, even in the general population, unless you see an outbreak.

Q: So what needs to happen before communities are no longer under boil-water advisories?

A: I think what needs to be done is that all agencies responsible for water need to come to the table. That includes the federal government and the provincial government. It includes all agencies related to health, environment and, obviously, First Nations.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-cant-we-get-clean-water-to-first-nation-reserves/feed/3Chart: Why the on-reserve Aboriginal vote is lower than averagehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/chart-the-on-reserve-aboriginal-vote/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/chart-the-on-reserve-aboriginal-vote/#respondTue, 06 Oct 2015 13:00:09 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=765435The turnout rate among on-reserve Aboriginals is significantly lower than for the overall Canadian population—for a variety of reasons

Voter turnout in Canadian federal elections tends to be lower among on-reserve Aboriginals than non-Aboriginals.

In 2011, 44.8 per cent of those living on reserves turned out to vote, while 61.1 per cent of the overall Canadian population cast a ballot. And this voting gap is a trend we’ve seen for at least the past four elections. While the on-reserve turnout rate follows the national trend, it remains significantly lower. In fact, in 2004, there was an entire 20.6 percentage-point difference between the national and on-reserve turnout rates.

A 2011 Elections Canada report on Aboriginal electoral participation suggests this gap in turnout can be attributed to a few factors, including lower rates of registration, fewer political resources, younger average age and poorer socioeconomic situations.

About 97 per cent of people resident on reserves have Registered Indian status (according to the 2011 National Household Survey), but it should be noted that these data can’t be used to describe all Aboriginals; only about 45 per cent of Canadians with Registered Indian status live on a reserve.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/chart-the-on-reserve-aboriginal-vote/feed/0Scott Gilmore: The issues no party will touchhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/scott-gilmore-the-issues-no-party-will-touch/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/scott-gilmore-the-issues-no-party-will-touch/#commentsFri, 18 Sep 2015 18:41:16 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=757623How can one of the world’s wealthiest countries still have citizens living in medieval conditions?

An abandoned house on the Pikangikum First Nation, a remote-access community approximately 100 km northwest of Red Lake, Ont. Half of the 430 homes are falling apart and unfit to live in, yet continue to be occupied. Ninety per cent don’t have running water or indoor toilets. (John Woods/CA)

This has been an interesting election. Of course, no one would have predicted a three-way tie. And the issues we anticipated (the economy, leadership), have largely been shouldered aside by the unexpected, such as refugees and whether the Prime Minister’s senior staff read their email.

The cliché is that no battle plans survive contact with the enemy, something that is likely being muttered in all of the campaign headquarters. But what I find most interesting about this election is what we’re not talking about. Measured by wealth, lifespan, access to education, or security, Canada is objectively one of the best places in the world to live.

Unless you’re Aboriginal. In which case, you might have been better off born in Somalia (which has a lower murder rate than on our reserves) or maybe El Salvador (which has better health outcomes). The state of the Canadian First Nations is a national shame. And yet no one in this election is asking how one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world could still have citizens living in medieval conditions.

We are more worried about income splitting and whether this will help or hurt our “struggling” middle class. Every time I see a politician in the suburbs, reassuring the long-suffering homeowners that he knows they’re hurting, I want to grab him by the scruff of his neck, drag him out to Pikangikum in northern Ontario, which has the highest suicide rate in the world, drop him on the unpaved main street, and yell, “Focus!”

It has never been a campaign issue and I have little hope that this year will be different. No one wins or loses an election, or even a riding, on this. There may be a photo op or two, some of the leaders will announce an education program or perhaps something to do with health. But that’s it. No one will stand up and say to voters with sincerity, “This must end”—and actually have a real plan to do so.

Defence spending is also an issue that rarely wins many votes. Compared to other countries, Canadians pay very little attention to our Armed Forces. This might be because our military bases are few and far away from major cities. Or perhaps we really are a gloriously pacific people, as the political left wants to believe. So it’s understandable why this is usually not a big election issue.

But I thought this year it might be. This is the first election after more than a decade of hard fighting in Afghanistan. We spent billions slogging it out in Kandahar, losing more than 150 soldiers in the process. And what we left behind was an ugly mess at best, a barren ruin at worst. None of the political parties and, it would seem, very few Canadians, are interested in asking: Was it worth it?

Our collective desire to avoid talking about Afghanistan is probably why the Conservatives were able to cut defence spending so successfully. No one is looking. No one cares. But they have made cuts. Big ones. According to NATO, Canada is now ranked at the bottom when it comes to investing in our defence. The debate about whether Canada should be fighting ISIS is moot, considering how few resources we are able to deploy. And, as Maclean’s has reported, our Navy is now so small and ill-equipped, it is just a coastal defence force that must borrow ships from Chile in order to even conduct training exercises.

Given the Conservatives’ track record, it’s unlikely they are going to talk much about defence spending. They will continue to warn everyone that “the night is dark and full of terrors” and only they can keep us safe. But when asked how they’ll rebuild the Navy or fix procurement, they’ll have to mumble into their sleeves. And the Liberals and NDP are apt to skip this issue, too. There may be a couple of announcements, but their voters either don’t prioritize defence or, in the case of the NDP, once went so far as to support Canada’s withdrawal from NATO.

But the biggest issue we are avoiding is climate change, which, one could argue, is the single greatest challenge of the century, in Canada and globally. But our main political parties are quite happy to keep it in the back pages of their pamphlets. Mindful of a persistently skeptical and disinterested base, the Conservatives are the least likely to raise it. And while the Liberals and the NDP give good sound bites on occasion, neither party wants to dance along the high wire strung between jobs and pipelines on the one side, and significantly reduced carbon levels on the other. Announcements will be made, about reforestation or recycling, but don’t expect anyone to push this to the front of his campaign.

Two things could change all this: events, or us. As the photo of Alan Kurdi suddenly pushed the refugee crisis into the election debate, a similarly evocative moment could thrust defence, First Nations or climate change to the forefront. A more likely way to make this an issue is if we make it an issue. If Canadians called their candidates, or emailed their political leaders and said, “Enough about the lobster tax credits, I want to know how you’re going to save the planet . . . ,” we might get somewhere. There’s no harm in trying.

AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde speaks at a news conference in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 following the National Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

Perry Bellegarde was elected Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations last December. Bellegarde is from the Little Black Bear First Nation, in Treaty 4 territory, in southeastern Saskatchewan. He spoke to Maclean’s from Winnipeg, where he was attending the annual Indigenous Music Awards.

Q: It seems there has been no attention paid to Indigenous issues in this election. Is that your perception?

A: I have noticed that for sure. Part of our job is to ensure our priorities get front and centre attention. According to the UN Human Development Index, Canada ranks six in the world. If you applied the same indices to First Nations, we would rank 63 in the world. There’s a high cost to maintaining that gap. When we look around every day we see it: Life expectancy for our people is five to seven years less than for a non-Indigenous person. Half our children live in poverty; 120 of our communities are under boil water advisories. Our youth suicide rate is five to seven times higher than for youth in Canada as a whole. We have 1,500 missing Indigenous women and girls. That violence needs to be addressed, and violence in communities needs to be addressed. If we win, Canada as a country will win. It’s all about closing the gap. If Canada started doing these things as an investment, it would be an economic stimulus plan for Canada. If five years ago we had started investing in housing education and training we could add $400 billion to Canada’s GDP; and you’ll save $115 billion in social spending by 2026.

Q: Why do you think there has there been a lack of focus on these issues?

A: In Canada, we are 4.3 per cent of the population. We get overlooked because we’re not large in numbers. Historically, a lot of First Nations people don’t vote. Trying to form government, you’re not concerned about First Nations issues because they don’t tend to help you win. We’re trying to mobilize the vote. We can influence 51 ridings. We can make the difference between a minority and a majority Parliament. Our people matter. Our priorities matter. Our votes matter.

Q: You got a lot of press last week when you said you were not planning to cast a ballot in the federal election. That decision was quickly reversed. You will be voting on Oct. 19. Can you tell me a bit about your initial decision not to vote?

A: We have a relationship with the Crown, not one particular party. No matter who gets in: Liberal, NDP, Conservative, it’s the Crown, not the party that has to abide by the treaty relationship.

Q: So what changed?

A: I listened to my elders, to chiefs and youth across Canada. We’re trying to mobilize the vote, to tell our people that individual votes matter, that our vote matters. That if we can mobilize our vote, we can influence ridings.

Q: Will you endorse any one party?

A: I’m not telling people who to vote for. We are saying get out and vote—make informed choices and decisions.

Q: Then what will parties have to do to win your vote, and the vote of First Nations people?

A: Whichever party starts announcing policies and priorities that help address the gap, our people will start gravitating toward. I will remain non-partisan because I will have to work with whoever gets elected.

Q: Given the current climate—the hurtful comments about First Nations people by some Conservative candidates—do you see many Indigenous people voting Conservative?

A: I have always said the relationship with the current government and Indigenous people is unnecessarily adversarial. They spent $160 million this year fighting court battles over Aboriginal rights and title. That is unnecessary. If we continue this approach, we’ll continue to lose generations of people; we’ll continue to lose languages and potential and opportunity.

Q: Who in particular reached out to you after you announced your decision not to vote?

A: I heard from a number of chiefs. I follow our traditional ways, and I always seek advice and guidance from my Sundance chiefs and ceremonial leaders from back home. I heard from my colleagues, from the regional chiefs.

Q: Which chiefs did you hear from?

A: I talked to a number of them. I also spoke to the Elders and ceremonial people I grew up with. I wanted to make sure I have their direction and their guidance.

Q: Chief Isadore Day, Regional Chief for Ontario, has announced a fundraising campaign to launch an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Will you support this inquiry?

A: Of course. And once Oct. 19 comes, we’ll see who we’re dealing with, and whether they are willing to hold an inquiry. The Conservatives have said they do not support a national inquiry—that they want to see action. What action are they doing? We haven’t seen any action on their part. There’s been no investment in housing, in daycare, in wellness centres, in transportation—in areas that can help bring real change. But we can’t just have an inquiry. There needs to be an action plan. And there needs to be strong education and awareness by Canada in general. Right now, there is a sense that First Nations women and girls aren’t important. They don’t matter. They are expendable. Indigenous women are human beings and they matter. We all need to understand that.

Q: Will you be voting in Ottawa or Saskatchewan?

A: Good question. I’ve moved to Ottawa. I will be voting in that territory.

Q: Who’s your MP?

A: Paul Dewar is my current MP. Catherine McKenna is running against him for the Liberals. I’m not sure who from the Conservatives is running in the riding. I’d like to sit down with all candidates and make a more informed choice.

Q: Once you’ve better informed yourself, will you announce who you intend to vote for?

A: No. That’s a very personal choice I can at least keep that between me and the Creator.

Q: Have you sat down with the Prime Minister?

A: We sat down once for 45 minutes after I was first elected last December. We continue to reach out. We are trying to build a relationship that will bring positive change.

Q: What did you make of him?

A: He’s an economist, so I tried to appeal to his economic side, to build the business case, to explain the financial cost of maintaining the status quo.

Q: How did you find him?

A: He was open, but not committal to any ideas. Respectful. But not really engaging. Professional.

Q: What should government consider its most crucial priority with regards to Indigenous people?

A: Closing the gap is the most important thing. If we can close that gap, we can build a greater government. When we do that, everyone in Canada wins. All political parties are starting to realize the current government’s approach is holding everyone back—it’s unnecessarily adversarial. I’d like all Canadians to know and understand that.